Acknowledgement signaling for radio access networks

ABSTRACT

There is disclosed a method of operating a feedback radio node in a radio access network, the feedback radio node being configured with a set of feedback codebooks. Each codebook of the set indicates an arrangement of one or more subpatterns of feedback bits into feedback information. The method includes transmitting feedback signaling representing feedback information determined based on a codebook selected from the set of feedback codebooks. The disclosure also pertains to related methods and devices.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a Submission Under 35 U.S.C. § 371 for U.S. NationalStage Patent Application of International Application Number:PCT/SE2017/051146, filed Nov. 17, 2017 entitled “ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSIGNALING FOR RADIO ACCESS NETWORKS,” the entirety of which isincorporated herein by reference.

TECHNICAL FIELD

This disclosure pertains to wireless or telecommunication communicationtechnology, in particular to radio access technology, e.g. for mobilecommunication.

BACKGROUND

Currently, radio telecommunication technology of 5^(th) Generation isbeing developed, with the goal to serve a large variety of use cases.Accordingly, the related systems have to be very flexible, and new kindsof signaling and information may be required to be transmitted. However,flexibility in many cases incurs signaling overhead, which should beavoided or limited for good performance.

This is particularly relevant for acknowledgement signaling processes,which are used to ensure correct reception of transmitted data and thusare run in parallel to many transmissions.

SUMMARY

It is an object of this disclosure to provide approaches allowingflexible acknowledgement signaling with limited signaling overhead, inparticular with limited overhead on dynamic control signaling. Theapproaches are particularly advantageously implemented in a 5^(th)Generation (5G) telecommunication network or 5G radio access technologyor network (RAT/RAN), in particular according to 3GPP (3^(rd) GenerationPartnership Project, a standardisation organization). A suitable RAN mayin particular be a RAN according to NR, for example release 15 or later,or LTE Evolution. It should be noted that in the following, the termsdata (sub)structure and data block (sub)structure may be considered tobe used synonymously.

There is generally disclosed a method of operating a feedback radio nodein a radio access network, the feedback radio node being configured witha set of feedback codebooks. Each codebook in the set indicates anarrangement of one or more subpatterns of feedback bits into feedbackinformation. The method comprises transmitting feedback signalingrepresenting feedback information determined based on a codebookselected from the set of feedback codebooks.

Moreover, a feedback radio node for a radio access network is disclosed.The feedback radio node is adapted for being configured with a set offeedback codebooks, each codebook of the set indicating an arrangementof one or more subpatterns of feedback bits into feedback information.The feedback radio node further is adapted for transmitting feedbacksignaling representing feedback information determined based on acodebook selected from the set of feedback codebooks. The feedback radionode may comprise, and/or being adapted for utilising, processingcircuitry and/or radio circuitry, in particular a transmitter and/ortransceiver and/or receiver, for transmitting the feedback signalingand/or determining the feedback information and/or selecting thecodebook. Alternatively, or additionally, the feedback radio node maycomprise a transmitting module for the transmitting and/or a selectingmodule for the selecting and/or a determining module for thedetermining.

A feedback radio node may in particular be a user equipment or terminal.However, in some scenarios, e.g. backhaul or relay scenarios, a feedbackradio node may be a network node, in particular a base station and/orgNodeB.

There is also disclosed a method of operating a signaling radio nodeand/or a signaling radio node arrangement in a radio access network. Themethod comprises configuring a feedback radio node with a set offeedback codebooks, each codebook of the set indicating an arrangementof one or more subpatterns of feedback bits into feedback information.Alternatively, or additionally, the method may comprise indicatingand/or configuring, to a feedback radio node, a feedback codebook to beselected from a set of configured feedback codebooks for transmission offeedback signaling. Further alternatively, or additionally, the methodmay comprise receiving feedback signaling from a feedback radio nodebased on a feedback codebook selected from a set of feedback codebooksconfigured to the feedback radio node.

Also, signaling radio node and/or a signaling radio node arrangement fora radio access network may be considered, the signaling radio nodeand/or arrangement being adapted for configuring a feedback radio nodewith a set of feedback codebooks, each codebook indicating anarrangement of one or more subpatterns of feedback bits into feedbackinformation. Alternatively, or additionally, the node and/or arrangementmay be adapted for indicating and/or configuring, to a feedback radionode, a feedback codebook to be selected from a set of configuredfeedback codebooks for transmission of feedback signaling. Furtheralternatively, or additionally, the node and/or arrangement may beadapted for receiving feedback signaling from a feedback radio nodebased on a feedback codebook selected from a set of feedback codebooksconfigured to the feedback radio node. The signaling radio node and/orarrangement may comprise, and/or being adapted for utilising, processingcircuitry and/or radio circuitry, in particular one or more transmittersand/or transceivers and/or receivers, for configuring the feedback radionode and/or determining indicating or configuring the codebook to beselected and/or receiving the feedback signaling. Alternatively, oradditionally, the signaling radio node and/or arrangement may comprise aconfiguring module for the configuring and/or an indicating module forthe indicating and/or a receiving module for the receiving.

A signaling radio node may for example be a network node. However, insome scenarios, e.g. sidelink scenarios, the signaling radio node may bea user equipment or terminal. A signaling radio node arrangement maycomprise one or more radio node, in particular network nodes, which maybe of the same or different types. Different nodes of the arrangementmay be adapted for, and/or provide, different functionalities describedherein. In particular, different nodes may configure differentcodebooks, and/or different nodes may perform configuring andperceiving. A signaling radio node arrangement may in some variantsrepresent a radio access network, and/or a heterogenous network(HetNet), and/or provide dual (or multiple) connectivity, e.g.comprising an anchor node and a booster node, and/or one or more of eachor either. The radio nodes of a node arrangement may comprise suitableinterfaces for communication between them, e.g. communication interfacesand/or corresponding circuitry.

Each subpattern of bits of a bit arrangement of feedback information maypertain to a specific data structure or substructure or message, inparticular control message, or signaling or transmission. Alternatively,or additionally, a subpattern may be associated to a specificacknowledgement process identifier, e.g. HARQ process identifier orsubprocess identifier.

A set of feedback codebooks may comprise a plurality of codebooks, inparticular two or more, e.g. a multiple of two, in particular 4 or 8.Different codebooks may be different in at least one subpattern, and/orin at least one data structure or substructure or message or signalingor transmission a subpattern pertains to. Different codebooks maycorrespond to the same or different sizes, e.g. in terms of bit size ofthe feedback information (e.g., sum of bits of all subpatterns of thecodebook), and/or number of subpatterns and/or number of bits in one ormore subpatterns.

In general, the codebook may be selected based on one or morecharacteristics of control signaling received and/or subjecttransmission. Such characteristics may exemplarily pertain to carrieraggregation and/or activation status, and/or bandwidth part activated,and/or transmission mode and/or resources of the control signaling orsubject transmission. The control signaling may be signaling schedulingthe feedback signaling.

Receiving feedback signaling may comprise demodulating and/or decodingreceived signaling, and/or associating the bits of the signaling tosubpatterns according to the selected codebook. It should be noted thatthe signaling radio node or arrangement receiving may be aware of thecodebook selected, e.g. due to an indication transmitted by the feedbackradio node, e.g. with the feedback signaling, e.g. in a message carryingthe feedback signaling.

Transmitting feedback signaling may comprise transmitting a codebookindication indicating the codebook selected. Such an indication may betransmitted in a message carrying the feedback signaling, e.g. a controlmessage carrying UCI or SCI. The message and/or indication may betransmitted on a channel and/or resources associated to controlsignaling, e.g. the feedback signaling, in particular a PUCCH or PSCCHor PUSCH (e.g., rate-matched or punctured). A transmission format may beassociated to the signaling and/or channel. The codebook indication maybe explicit, e.g. with a parameter and/or bit or bit field, and/orimplicit, e.g. based on the resources and/or transmission format and/orchannel used for transmitting the feedback signaling.

It may be considered that one or more of the feedback codebooks, or allcodebooks of the set, may be HARQ codebooks. In some cases, one or moremay be ARQ codebooks. A codebook may generally pertain to one carrier,or to more than one carriers, e.g. in a carrier aggregation; thecarriers may be carriers for reception. In some variants, a codebookpertains to feedback signaling transmitted on one carrier, which may bean UL carrier or sidelink carrier of a carrier aggregation comprising aplurality of carriers in the other communication direction. It may beconsidered that a codebook pertains to transmission of feedbacksignaling at one instance or transmission timing, e.g. in one message,and/or according to a format for one transmission like short PUCCH orlong PUCCH. The feedback information of the feedback signaling may bejointly encoded and/or modulated.

In some variants, the codebook may be selected based on an indicationreceived with control information. The control information may berepresented by control message, in particular a physical layer messageand/or DCI message and/or SCI message. The control information maycomprise the indication, and/or explicitly or implicitly indicate thecodebook to be selected, e.g. based on carrier and/or resource (inparticular, time and/or frequency or subcarrier/s) or resourcestructure, and/or CORESET, and/or search space, and/or resource pool orregion or set in which the control message is received, and/or based onthe type of the control message. The indication may in particularindicate and/or configure a resource pool and/or resources and/or achannel and/or transmission format for feedback control informationand/or feedback signaling, e.g. corresponding to an uplink or sidelinkcontrol channel like PUCCH or PSCCH or other (e.g., physical) channel,e.g. a PUSCH. An indication of carrier and/or resource and/or channelmay indirectly or implicitly indicate the codebook, e.g. based on aone-to-one mapping of resource or resource structure or channel tocodebook. Such a mapping may be configured or configurable, e.g. withhigher layer signaling like RRC signaling and/or MAC signaling, or maybe predefined. Alternatively, or additionally, the indication mayindicate a transmission to be received, and/or resources on which atransmission has to be received, and/or a channel of such atransmission, and/or a transmission format and/or type, e.g. slot-basedor non-slot based transmission. The corresponding control message may bea scheduling assignment. An indication may additionally, oralternatively, indicate one or more carriers, which may be carriers onwhich subject transmission may be scheduled, and/or which may beconfigured and/or activated, e.g. in a carrier aggregation.

Generally, the codebook may be selected based on resources scheduled fortransmission of the feedback signaling, e.g. in a resource structureand/or resource pool and/or region or set. The resources may beassociated to a channel, in particular a physical and/or controlchannel, for example PUCCH or PSCCH. The resources may be scheduled withcontrol signaling, e.g. a control message like a DCI or SCI message,which may in some variants implicitly or explicitly indicate theassociation to a channel and/or transmission format. Scheduling theresources may be considered an example of configuring. Schedulingresources may comprise indication resources from a set of resources,which may be configured and/or configurable, in particular with higherlayer control signaling, like RRC signaling and/or MAC signaling.

Independent, or in combination with other criteria, it may be consideredthat the codebook is selected based on subject transmissioncharacteristics, e.g. resources used for the subject transmission,and/or channel, and/or number of layers, e.g. in MIMO scenarios, and/ortransport block size, and/or retransmission status (e.g., number ofretransmission of the current transport block or code block group).

In general, the codebook may be selected based on a format indicated forthe feedback signaling, e.g. a transmission format. The transmissionformat may be indicated implicitly or explicitly. For example, atransmission format may be associated to a channel and/or resources,which may be indicated by a mapping. The mapping may in some variants beconfigured or configurable, e.g. with higher layer control signalinglike RRC and/or MAC signaling, and/or be predefined. The transmissionformat may be indicated, e.g. configured and/or scheduled, with controlsignaling, in particular a control message, which may be physical layersignaling, and/or a DCI or SCI message. A transmission format may forexample define a structure of a message comprising and/or carrying thefeedback information, e.g. in terms of header information and/oradditional information and/or MCS and/or duration and/or maximum numberof bits, etc. In general, a transmission format may pertain to aspecific channel, e.g. a physical and/or control channel like PUCCH orPSCCH. A transmission format in some examples may represent short orlong transmission, e.g. short or long PUCCH or PSCCH, and/or atransmission of 2 bits or less, or larger than 2 bits.

The feedback signaling may be based on a transmission codebookdetermined based on the selected codebook, for example by changing theselected codebook, in particular based on a received feedback controlindication. The feedback control indication may be included in a controlmessage, in particular a dynamic control message, for example a DCI orSCI message.

In general, a subpattern of bits of the feedback information may pertainto control signaling or data signaling (as examples of subjecttransmissions), and/or an associated message and/or data structure orsubstructure, in particular a control message or transport block or codeblock group.

At least one of the feedback codebooks of the set may comprise one ormore subpatterns pertaining to control signaling, and/or a controlmessage, and/or an associated data structure or substructure. Thecontrol message may in particular of command type.

Different feedback codebooks may pertain to different carriers and/ordifferent carrier arrangements and/or different types of signalingand/or different types of control signaling and/or different types ofdata signaling. A type may be related to the message type, and/orchannel and/or format and/or resources associated to the signaling. Acontrol message type may be distinguished between fixed-size message(which may for example be fallback control messages) and messages withconfigurable size. The size may be measured in bits and/or modulationsymbols.

At least one feedback codebook of the set may comprise at least onesubpattern pertaining to a code block group. More than one subpattern ofa codebook may pertain to (different) code block groups, and/or morethan one codebooks may comprise one or more of such subpatterns.

There is also disclosed a program product comprising instructionsadapted for causing processing circuitry to control and/or perform amethod as described herein.

Moreover, a carrier medium arrangement carrying and/or storing a programproduct as described herein may be considered.

The approaches described herein allow flexible use of feedback withlimited signaling overhead. In particular, it is possible to useimplicit signaling, or already existing signaling like a resource orchannel indication in control signaling to indicate which codebook toselect. The configuring of the set of codebooks may be performed withhigher layer signaling. Accordingly, signaling overhead on dynamicsignaling and total signaling may be limited. This may be particularlyadvantageous in scenarios in which code block group-level feedback maybe desired, but fallback functionality or low latency functionalityprovided transport block-level feedback. In such cases, differentcodebooks may be provided, which may be selected based on the type ofcontrol signaling used for scheduling. Also, suitably codebook sizes maybe configured, avoiding unnecessary large feedback transmissions, e.g.by reducing or avoiding padding.

Feedback signaling may generally pertain to subject transmission.Subject transmission may be data signaling or control signaling. Thetransmission may be on a shared or dedicated channel. Data signaling maybe on a data channel, for example on a PDSCH or PSSCH, or on a dedicateddata channel, e.g. for low latency and/or high reliability, e.g. a URLLCchannel. Control signaling may be on a control channel, for example on acommon control channel or a PDCCH or PSCCH, and/or comprise one or moreDCI messages or SCI messages. In some cases, the subject transmissionmay comprise, or represent, reference signaling. For example, it maycomprise DM-RS and/or pilot signaling and/or discovery signaling and/orsounding signaling and/or phase tracking signaling and/or cell-specificreference signaling and/or user-specific signaling, in particularCSI-RS. Feedback based on reference signaling may comprise measurementinformation, e.g. CQI/CSI information and/or related information.

A feedback configuration may configure a HARQ codebook. A feedbackcodebook may in general be configured dynamically and/orsemi-statically. Performing re-transmission may comprise transmittingthe control information again, if it was not received correctly, e.g.,according to the feedback. Such re-transmission may use a differenttransmission format or mode and/or MCS and/or error encoding than anearlier transmission. The number of transmission of specific controlinformation may be counted, and in some cases, may be limited in numberby a threshold, which may be predefined and/or configured orconfigurable. If the threshold is reached, retransmission may bestopped. It may be considered that performing retransmission comprisestransmitting new control information and/or omitting retransmission ofcontrol information if correct reception is indicated by the feedback. Asignaling radio node and/or arrangement may generally be adapted forperforming re-transmission based on received feedback signaling, and/orperform such re-transmission.

Acknowledgement feedback may be transmitted based on a feedbackcodebook, e.g. a HARQ codebook. A codebook may indicate which bit/s offeedback pertain to which transmission and/or information and/or datastructure (e.g., transport block or code block or code block groupand/or message and/or signaling or transmission), e.g. indicatingacknowledgment or non-acknowledgement, or non-transmission/reception.

It may be considered that transmitting the feedback signaling, inparticular of acknowledgement feedback, is based on determining whetherthe subject transmission has been received correctly, e.g. based onerror coding and/or reception quality. Reception quality may for examplebe based on a determined signal quality.

In some variants, a feedback configuration, and/or control informationconfiguring it, may comprise a position indication indicating a positionof the acknowledgement feedback relative to second acknowledgementfeedback and/or in a feedback or HARQ codebook. The secondacknowledgement feedback and/or an associated second resource may beindicated in a control message, e.g. the control message carrying thecontrol information. The position indication may comprise an indicatorlike a downlink assignment indicator or index (DAI), which may indicateor count a number of data structures (like transport blocks and/or codeblocks and/or code block groups and/or messages and/or control/commandmessages) for which acknowledgement feedback is scheduled and/orindicated, e.g. control feedback and/or other acknowledgement feedback.Different control messages, e.g. scheduling assignments, may comprisedifferently valued indicators, e.g. representing counts. A controlmessage may optionally comprise a total number indicator, which mayindicate a total number of data structures for which feedback isscheduled and/or indicated. Such an indicator may be referred to astotal DAI. Alternatively, or additionally, a position indication and/orthe indicator may indicate a count of bits scheduled and/or indicatedfor feedback, or a total number of bits, respectively. A count maypertain to a HARQ codebook, for example indicating where in the HARQcodebook a bit subpattern representing the feedback information for adata structure is to be located. It may be considered that for differenttypes of data structures and/or channels and/or resource pools,different codebooks may be used. Feedback that is combined may be basedon the same codebook. In some variants, a subpattern combinationpertaining to control information may also pertain to data signaling,e.g. data signaling scheduled for reception, which may be scheduled bythe control message carrying the control information. In such a case,there may be only one indicator, e.g. indicating one count, based onwhich the target radio node may include the subpattern in the codebook.The subpattern combination may comprise a subpattern indicatingreception of the control information and a subpattern indicatingreception of the data signaling, e.g., in a predefined or configured orconfigurable order. For example, the subpattern combination may comprisetwo bits, wherein one bit may indicate ACK/NACK for the controlinformation, and the other ACK/NACK for the data signaling. Otherorders, or different subpatterns may be considered. Subject transmissionmay in general comprise one or more messages, in particular one or morecontrol messages, and/or one or more transmissions, e.g. pertaining toone or more channels, e.g. a data channel and/or a control channel. Suchtransmissions may be distributed over time, e.g. in different slotsand/or mini-slots.

A system comprising a plurality of radio nodes as described herein, inparticular a network node and one or more user equipments may beconsidered.

Acknowledgement or feedback information may represent and/or compriseone or more bits, in particular a pattern of bits. Multiple bitspertaining to a data structure or substructure or message like a controlmessage may be considered a subpattern. The structure or arrangement offeedback or acknowledgement information may indicate the order, and/ormeaning, and/or mapping, and/or pattern of bits (or subpatterns of bits)of the information. An acknowledgment configuration, in particular thefeedback configuration, may indicate the size of, and/or arrangementand/or mapping of bits of, acknowledgement information carried by theacknowledgement signaling the configuration pertains to. Such aconfiguration may be referred to as codebook. The structure or mappingmay in particular indicate one or more data block structures, e.g. codeblocks and/or code block groups and/or transport blocks and/or messages,e.g. command messages, the acknowledgement information pertains to,and/or which bits or subpattern of bits are associated to which datablock structure. In some cases, the mapping may pertain to one or moreacknowledgement signaling processes, e.g. processes with differentidentifiers, and/or one or more different data streams. Theconfiguration may indicate to which process/es and/or data stream/s theinformation pertains. Generally, the acknowledgement information maycomprise one or more subpatterns, each of which may pertain to a datablock structure, e.g. a code block or code block group or transportblock. A subpattern may be arranged to indicate acknowledgement ornon-acknowledgement, or another retransmission state like non-schedulingor non-reception, of the associated data block structure. It may beconsidered that a subpattern comprises one bit, or in some cases morethan one bit. It should be noted that acknowledgement information may besubjected to significant processing before being transmitted withacknowledgement signaling. Different configurations may indicatedifferent sizes and/or mapping and/or structures and/or pattern.

A transmission format may generally indicate one or more data blockstructures or substructures for transmission or reception, and/or how adata block like a transport block (and/or a related structure) isdivided, e.g. into subblocks or subblock groups, like code block/sand/or code block group/s. A transmission format may in some casespertain to more than one data block, and/or may pertain to more than oneacknowledgement signaling process. It may be considered that atransmission format indicates size in bits and/or coding for the one ormore data block structures or substructures. A transmission format maypertain to signaling to be transmitted by a radio node, or to signalingto be received, and/or to acknowledgement signaling pertaining tosignaling to be received. For different communication directions, and/ordifferent carriers and/or bandwidth parts, and/or sets thereof, and/ordifferent configurations, in particular different configurations of theset of acknowledgement configurations, different transmissions formatsmay be utilised, e.g. defined and/or configured. In particular, atransmission format for transmission on the transmission resources maybe different from a transmission format associated to an acknowledgementconfiguration like the feedback configuration. Transmission formats maybe independently configured from each other, e.g. using differentmessages and/or different signaling, e.g. on different layers of theprotocol stack.

A feedback configuration, in particular a feedback codebook, maygenerally be a code block group configuration, which may indicate amapping of one or more acknowledgement information subpatterns (e.g.,one or more bits) to one or more code block groups, each of which maycomprise or consist of the same or a different number of code blocks, inparticular one or more code blocks. Each subpattern may be mapped to onecode block group. In some variants, an acknowledgement configuration mayindicate a mapping of one or more subpatterns to one or more transportblocks, each of which may comprise and/or consist of one or more codeblock groups. Each subpattern may be mapped to one transport block. Anacknowledgement configuration may pertain to a combination of code blockgroup/s and transport block/s, in particular regarding the structure ortransmission format of corresponding acknowledgement information. Anacknowledgement configuration may be considered to configure and/orformat feedback or acknowledgement information pertaining to code blockgroups or transport blocks or code blocks.

A data block structure may correspond to a scheduled data block, e.g.for data signaling. The data blocks may be associated to separatelyscheduled transmissions, e.g. separate channels and/or instances and/orcarriers and/or component carriers and/or data streams, e.g. in thecontext of carrier aggregation and/or multiple-antenna transmissions,e.g. MIMO (Multiple-Input, Multiple-Output). The data blocks and/orassociated data signaling may be for downlink, or in some cases forsidelink. The feedback signaling, in particular acknowledgementsignaling, may generally be uplink signaling, but in some variants maybe sidelink signaling. However, there may be considered cases in whichdata signaling is uplink signaling, e.g. in the context ofretransmission performed by a user equipment. A subpattern may representthe acknowledgement information and/or feedback for the associated datablock, e.g. with the size as indicated by an assignment indication.Different data blocks may be associated to different transmissioninstances and/or different acknowledgment signaling processes, e.g. HARQprocesses. An acknowledgement signaling procedure may comprise one ormore acknowledgement signaling processes, which may pertain to the samecommunication direction.

A data block structure (or, shorter, data structure) may generallyrepresent, and/or be associated to, a scheduled data block and/orcorresponding signaling. The data block may be scheduled for reception,e.g. by control signaling, in particular a control information message,which may be a scheduling assignment. In some cases, a scheduled datablock may not be received, which may be reflected in the correspondingacknowledgement signaling. A number of data block structures, and/or thenumber of assignment indications, may be considered to represent anumber of transmissions of data scheduled to be received by the userequipment (or second radio node).

A data block structure may generally represent, and/or correspond to, adata block, which may generally be a block of data and/or bits. A datablock may for example be a transport block, code block, or code blockgroup. It may be considered that a data block structure represents adata block which may be intended to be subjected to an acknowledgementsignaling process. A data block may comprise one or more subblocks,which may be grouped into one or more subblock groups, e.g. code blockgroups. A data block may in particular be a transport block, which maycomprise one or more code blocks and/or one or more code block groups. Adata block structure may be considered to accordingly represent atransport block, code block or code block group. A subblock group like acode block group may comprise one or more subblocks, e.g. code blocks.It may be considered that a data block comprises one or more subblockgroups, which may have the same or different sizes (e.g., in number ofbits, e.g. systemic and/or coding bits). It may be considered that adata block comprises information bits or systematic bits (which may beconsidered to represent data to be transmitted and/or error detectionbits) and/or coding bits, e.g. bits for error coding like errordetection and/or in particular error correction coding, and/or parity orCRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check) bits. A subblock (e.g., code block) and/orsubblock group (e.g., code block group) may analogously comprisesystemic and/or coding bits. In some cases, systematic bits may beconsidered to comprise information and error detection bits determinedbased on the information bits. Parity bits may be considered torepresent error correction coding bits. It should be noted that for adata structure (like a transport block) comprising one or moresubstructures (e.g., CBGs or code blocks), the systematic bits, andpossibly parity bits, of the substructures may be considered informationbits, based on which error detection coding and/or correction coding maybe performed.

An acknowledgment signaling process may be a HARQ process, and/or beidentified by a process identifier, e.g. a HARQ process identifier orsubidentifier. Acknowledgement signaling and/or associatedacknowledgement information may be referred to as feedback. It should benoted that data blocks or structures to which subpatterns may pertainmay be intended to carry data (e.g., information and/or systemic and/orcoding bits). However, depending on transmission conditions, such datamay be received or not received (or not received correctly), which maybe indicated correspondingly in the feedback. In some cases, asubpattern of acknowledgement signaling may comprise padding bits, e.g.if the acknowledgement information for a data block requires fewer bitsthan indicated as size of the subpattern. Such may for example happen ifthe size is indicated by a unit size larger than required for thefeedback.

Acknowledgment information may generally indicate at least ACK or NACK,e.g. pertaining to an acknowledgment signaling process, or an element ofa data block structure like a data block, subblock group or subblock, ora message, in particular a control message. Generally, to anacknowledgment signaling process there may be associated one specificsubpattern and/or a data block structure, for which acknowledgmentinformation may be provided.

An acknowledgment signaling process may determine correct or incorrectreception, and/or corresponding acknowledgement information, of a datablock like a transport block, and/or substructures thereof, based oncoding bits associated to the data block, and/or based on coding bitsassociated to one or more data block and/or subblocks and/or subblockgroup/s. Acknowledgement information (determined by an acknowledgementsignaling process) may pertain to the data block as a whole, and/or toone or more subblocks or subblock groups. A code block may be consideredan example of a subblock, whereas a code block group may be consideredan example of a subblock group. Accordingly, the associated subpatternmay comprise one or more bits indicating reception status or feedback ofthe data block, and/or one or more bits indicating reception status orfeedback of one or more subblocks or subblock groups. Each subpattern orbit of the subpattern may be associated and/or mapped to a specific datablock or subblock or subblock group. In some variants, correct receptionfor a data block may be indicated if all subblocks or subblock groupsare correctly identified. In such a case, the subpattern may representacknowledgement information for the data block as a whole, reducingoverhead in comparison to provide acknowledgement information for thesubblocks or subblock groups. The smallest structure (e.g.subblock/subblock group/data block) the subpattern providesacknowledgement information for and/or is associated to may beconsidered its (highest) resolution. In some variants, a subpattern mayprovide acknowledgment information regarding several elements of a datablock structure and/or at different resolution, e.g. to allow morespecific error detection. For example, even if a subpattern indicatesacknowledgment signaling pertaining to a data block as a whole, in somevariants higher resolution (e.g., subblock or subblock group resolution)may be provided by the subpattern. A subpattern may generally compriseone or more bits indicating ACK/NACK for a data block, and/or one ormore bits for indicating ACK/NACK for a subblock or subblock group, orfor more than one subblock or subblock group.

A subblock and/or subblock group may comprise information bits(representing the data to be transmitted, e.g. user data and/ordownlink/sidelink data or uplink data). It may be considered that a datablock and/or subblock and/or subblock group also comprises error one ormore error detection bits, which may pertain to, and/or be determinedbased on, the information bits (for a subblock group, the errordetection bit/s may be determined based on the information bits and/orerror detection bits and/or error correction bits of the subblock/s ofthe subblock group). A data block or substructure like subblock orsubblock group may comprise error correction bits, which may inparticular be determined based on the information bits and errordetection bits of the block or substructure, e.g. utilising an errorcorrection coding scheme, e.g. LDPC or polar coding. Generally, theerror correction coding of a data block structure (and/or associatedbits) may cover and/or pertain to information bits and error detectionbits of the structure. A subblock group may represent a combination ofone or more code blocks, respectively the corresponding bits. A datablock may represent a code block or code block group, or a combinationof more than one code block groups. A transport block may be split up incode blocks and/or code block groups, for example based on the bit sizeof the information bits of a higher layer data structure provided forerror coding and/or size requirements or preferences for error coding,in particular error correction coding. Such a higher layer datastructure is sometimes also referred to as transport block, which inthis context represents information bits without the error coding bitsdescribed herein, although higher layer error handling information maybe included, e.g. for an internet protocol like TCP. However, such errorhandling information represents information bits in the context of thisdisclosure, as the acknowledgement signaling procedures described treatit accordingly.

In some variants, a subblock like a code block may comprise errorcorrection bits, which may be determined based on the information bit/sand/or error detection bit/s of the subblock. An error correction codingscheme may be used for determining the error correction bits, e.g. basedon LDPC or polar coding. In some cases, a subblock or code block may beconsidered to be defined as a block or pattern of bits comprisinginformation bits, error detection bit/s determined based on theinformation bits, and error correction bit/s determined based on theinformation bits and/or error detection bit/s. It may be considered thatin a subblock, e.g. code block, the information bits (and possibly theerror correction bit/s) are protected and/or covered by the errorcorrection scheme or corresponding error correction bit/s. A code blockgroup may comprise one or more code blocks. In some variants, noadditional error detection bits and/or error correction bits areapplied, however, it may be considered to apply either or both. Atransport block may comprise one or more code block groups. It may beconsidered that no additional error detection bits and/or errorcorrection bits are applied to a transport block, however, it may beconsidered to apply either or both. In some specific variants, the codeblock group/s comprise no additional layers of error detection orcorrection coding, and the transport block may comprise only additionalerror detection coding bits, but no additional error correction coding.This may particularly be true if the transport block size is larger thanthe code block size and/or the maximum size for error correction coding.A subpattern of acknowledgement signaling (in particular indicating ACKor NACK) may pertain to a code block, e.g. indicating whether the codeblock has been correctly received. It may be considered that asubpattern pertains to a subgroup like a code block group or a datablock like a transport block. In such cases, it may indicate ACK, if allsubblocks or code blocks of the group or data/transport block arereceived correctly (e.g. based on a logical AND operation), and NACK oranother state of non-correct reception if at least one subblock or codeblock has not been correctly received. It should be noted that a codeblock may be considered to be correctly received not only if it actuallyhas been correctly received, but also if it can be correctlyreconstructed based on soft-combining and/or the error correctioncoding.

A subpattern may pertain to one acknowledgement signaling process and/orone carrier like a component carrier and/or data block structure or datablock. It may in particular be considered that one (e.g. specific and/orsingle) subpattern pertains, e.g. is mapped by the codebook, to one(e.g., specific and/or single) acknowledgement signaling process, e.g. aspecific and/or single HARQ process. It may be considered that in thebit pattern, subpatterns are mapped to acknowledgement signalingprocesses and/or data blocks or data block structures on a one-to-onebasis. In some variants, there may be multiple subpatterns (and/orassociated acknowledgment signaling processes) associated to the samecomponent carrier, e.g. if multiple data streams transmitted on thecarrier are subject to acknowledgement signaling processes. A subpatternmay comprise one or more bits, the number of which may be considered torepresent its size or bit size. Different bit n-tupels (n being 1 orlarger) of a subpattern may be associated to different elements of adata block structure (e.g., data block or subblock or subblock group),and/or represent different resolutions. There may be considered variantsin which only one resolution is represented by a bit pattern, e.g. adata block. A bit n-tupel may represent acknowledgement information(also referred to a feedback), in particular ACK or NACK, andoptionally, (if n>1), may represent DTX/DRX or other reception states.ACK/NACK may be represented by one bit, or by more than one bit, e.g. toimprove disambiguity of bit sequences representing ACK or NACK, and/orto improve transmission reliability.

Generally, the feedback signaling, in particular acknowledgementsignaling may be signaling at one instance and/or in one transmissiontiming structure, and/or scheduled for common transmission and/or theacknowledgement information may be jointly encoded and/or modulated. Theacknowledgement information or feedback information may pertain to aplurality of different transmissions, which may be associated to and/orrepresented by data block structures, respectively the associated datablocks or data signaling. The data block structures, and/or thecorresponding blocks and/or signaling, may be scheduled for simultaneoustransmission, e.g. for the same transmission timing structure, inparticular within the same slot or subframe, and/or on the samesymbol/s. However, alternatives with scheduling for non-simultaneoustransmission may be considered. For example, the acknowledgmentinformation may pertain to data blocks scheduled for differenttransmission timing structures, e.g. different slots (or mini-slots, orslots and mini-slots) or similar, which may correspondingly be received(or not or wrongly received). Scheduling signaling may generallycomprise indicating resources, e.g. time and/or frequency resources, forexample for receiving or transmitting the scheduled signaling.

A radio node, in particular a signaling radio node, may generally beadapted for scheduling data blocks or subject transmission fortransmission and/or to provide and/or determine and/or configureassociated assignment indications, which may include a total assignmentindication. Configuring a feedback radio node or an UE may comprise suchscheduling and/or associated determining and/or configuring and/orproviding of the assignment indications.

A resource structure may represent time and/or frequency and/or coderesources. In particular, a resource structure may comprise a pluralityof resource elements, and/or one or more resource blocks/PRBs.

Signaling may be considered to carry a message and/or information, ifthe message and/or information is represented in the (modulated)waveform of the signaling. In particular, extraction of a message and/orinformation may require demodulation and/or decoding of the signaling.Information may be considered to be included in a message if the messagecomprises a value and/or parameter and/or bit field and/or indication orindicator representing the information, or more than one or acombination thereof. Information included in such a message may beconsidered to be carried by the signaling carrying the message, and viceversa. A signaling characteristic, however, may pertain to acharacteristic accessible without demodulation and/or decoding, and/ormay be determined or determinable independent thereof. However, in somecases it may be considered that signaling is demodulated and/or decodedto determine whether the characteristic is associated to specificsignaling, e.g. if the resources characterising the signaling actuallybelong to control signaling and/or to signaling intended for theresponding radio node or user equipment. Also, in some cases, thecharacteristic may be provided as information in a message, inparticular if the characterising signaling is not carrying the selectioncontrol message. Generally, selection of the resource structure may bebased on one or more than one signaling characteristics. A signalingcharacteristic may in particular represent one or more resources, inparticular in time domain, e.g. beginning and/or end and/or duration ofthe signaling, e.g., represented in symbol/s, and/or frequency range orresources of the signaling, e.g. represented in subcarrier/s, and/ornumerology of the signaling, in particular of control signaling or datasignaling like PDSCH signaling or PSSCH signaling. In some cases, thecharacteristic may indicate a message format, e.g. a format of theselection control message, for example an associated DCI or SCI format.It may generally be considered that a signaling characteristicrepresents and/or indicates a DCI format and/or search space (e.g.,reception pool) and/or code, e.g. scrambling code, and/or an identity,e.g. one of different identities (like R-NTI or C-NTIs) assigned to theresponding radio node or user equipment. Control signaling may bescrambled based on such identity.

Transmitting acknowledgment information/feedback on resources maycomprise multiplexing acknowledgement information and data/datasignaling on the transmission resources, e.g., for UCI on PUSCHscenarios. In general, transmitting acknowledgement information and/orfeedback may comprise mapping the information to the transmissionresources and/or modulation symbol/s, e.g. based on a modulation andcoding scheme and/or transmission format. The acknowledgementinformation may be punctured or rate-matched. Acknowledgementinformation pertaining to different subject transmissions and/oracknowledgment signaling processes may be mapped differently. Forexample, acknowledgement information pertaining to late subjecttransmissions and/or having a size smaller than a threshold size (e.g.,3 or 2 bits) may be punctured, whereas acknowledgment informationpertaining to earlier (non-late) subject transmissions and/or having asize equal to or larger than the threshold size may be rate-matched.

Feedback signaling, e.g. acknowledgement feedback, may generally betransmitted on resources and/or on a channel and/or according to atransmission format according to one or more configurations, which mayfor example be selectable based on one or more indications of controlinformation, e.g. of the control message carrying the controlinformation.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The drawings are provided to illustrate concepts and approachesdescribed herein, and are not intended to limit their scope. Thedrawings comprise:

FIG. 1 , showing an exemplary downlink signaling structure;

FIG. 2 , showing exemplary resources for PUCCH;

FIG. 3 , showing an exemplary signaling structure;

FIG. 4 , showing an exemplary radio node implemented as a userequipment; and

FIG. 5 , showing an exemplary radio node implemented as a network node.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

In the following, approaches are described for illustrative purposes inthe context of NR RAT. However, they are generally applicable with othertechnologies. Also, communication in uplink and downlink between asignaling radio node like a network node and a feedback radio node likean UE is described by way of example. The approaches should not beconstrued to be limited to such communication, but can also be appliedfor sidelink or backhaul or relay communication. For ease of reference,in some cases it is referred to a channel to represent signaling ortransmission on the channel. A PUSCH may represent uplink datasignaling, a PDSCH downlink data signaling, a PDCCH downlink controlsignaling (in particular, one or more DCI messages like schedulingassignments or grants), a PUCCH uplink control signaling, in particularsignaling of UCI. In some cases, UCI may be transmitted on PUSCH orassociated resource instead of on PUCCH.

A carrier may be portioned into bandwidth parts (BWP). Bandwidth partscan have multiple usages. One of the envisioned usage scenarios is toenable multiple numerologies mixed in frequency-domain on the samecarrier. A BWP configuration may indicate a set of frequency-domainresources, and an associate numerology. A UE can be configured with oneor multiple BWP parts. DL and UL configurations (and/or SLconfigurations) may be are independent from each other. Typically, eachBWP has its own associated CORESET for the scheduling DCI.

In general, (acknowledgement) feedback may be considered to pertain toinformation or signaling or a message if is determined based onevaluating error coding included into the information and/or calculatedfor the information, and/or if it is adapted to indicate a receptionstatus of the information or signaling or message, e.g. acknowledgementor non-acknowledgement; and/or if it based on measurements performed onthe signaling.

FIG. 1 schematically shows an exemplary signaling structure of a dynamicHARQ codebook (in both component carrier and time dimension). Here, eachDL assignment (typically a DL assignment is carried in a DCI on PDCCH)contains a counter and total DAI field. The counter DAI field counts thenumber of DL assignments that has been scheduled so far (including thecurrent DL assignment) for the current HARQ codebook. The componentcarriers are ordered (e.g. according to carrier frequency) and thecounter DAI counts DL assignments in this order. Along the time axis thecounter DAI is not reset but is increased continuously at slotboundaries. The total DAI in each DL assignment is set to the totalnumber of DL assignments that have been scheduled so far (including thecurrent slot) for the current HARQ codebook. The total DAI in a slot isthus set to the highest counter DAI of the slot. To save overhead, amodulo operation (often mod 2) may be applied to counter and total DAIwhich can then be expressed with a few bits, e.g. 2 bit for mod-2. Thecounter/total DAI mechanism enables the receiver to recover the HARQcodebook size as well as indexing into the HARQ codebook if fewcontiguous DL assignments are missed.

PUCCH can carry UCI, e.g. ACK/NACK (or more generally, feedback relatedto HARQ), measurement information like CQI/CSI, SR, or beam relatedinformation.

NR defines a variety of different PUCCH formats, which can be groupedinto short and long PUCCH formats.

Short PUCCH

Short PUCCH comes in flavors for =2 bit and >2 bit. Short PUCCH can beconfigured at any symbols within a slot. While for slot-basedtransmissions short PUCCH towards the end of a slot interval is thetypical configuration, PUCCH resources distributed over or early withina slot interval can be used for scheduling request or PUCCH signaling inresponse to mini-slots.

PUCCH for =2 bit uses sequence selection. In sequence selection theinput bit(s) selects one of the available sequences and the inputinformation is presented by the selected sequence; e.g. for 1 bit 2sequences are required, for 2 bit 4 sequences. This PUCCH can eitherspan 1 or 2 symbols, in case of 2 symbols the same information istransmitted in a second symbol, potentially with another set ofsequences (sequence hopping to randomize interference) and at anotherfrequency (to achieve frequency-diversity).

PUCCH for >2 bit uses 1 or 2 symbols. In case of 1 symbol, DM-RS and UCIpayload carrying subcarriers are interleaved. The UCI payload is priormapping to subcarriers encoded (either using Reed Muller codes or Polarcodes, depending on the payload). In case of 2 symbols, the encoded UCIpayload is mapped to both symbols. For the 2-symbol PUCCH, typically thecode rate is halved (in two symbols twice as many coded bits areavailable) and the second symbol is transmitted at a different frequency(to achieve frequency-diversity).

Long PUCCH

Long PUCCH corns in the two flavors=2 bit and >2 bit. Both variantsexist with variable length ranging from 4 to 14 symbols in a slot, andcan be aggregated across multiple slots. Long PUCCH can occur atmultiple positions within a slot with more or less possible placementsdepending on the PUCCH length. Long PUCCH can be configured with orwithout frequency-hopping.

Long PUCCH for >2 bit uses TDM between DM-RS and UCI-carrying symbols.UCI payload is encoded (either using Reed Muller codes or Polar codes,depending on the payload), mapped to modulation symbols (typically QPSKor pi/2 BPSK), DFT-precoded to reduce PAPR, and mapped to allocatedsubcarriers for OFDM transmission.

A UE can be configured with multiple PUCCH formats, of the same ordifferent type. Small payload PUCCH formats are needed if a UE isscheduled only with 1 or 2 DL assignments while a large payload formatis needed if the UE is scheduled with multiple DL assignments. LongPUCCH formats are also needed for better coverage. A UE could forexample be configured with a short PUCCH for =2 bit and a long PUCCHfor >2 bit. A UE in very good coverage could even use a short PUCCHformat for >2 bit while a UE in less good coverage requires even for =2bit a long PUCCH format. FIG. 2 depicts an example of PUCCH formatsconfigured to a UE. P0 to P4 correspond to different PUCCH resources forshort PUCCH, P5 to P8 to PUCCH resources for long PUCCH. Between thePUCCH resources, signaling on PUSCH or other signaling, or no signalingmay be scheduled. Resources may overlap, as indicated with P4. Dependingon which resource is indicate for PUCCH transmission and/or the feedbacksignaling, a codebook may be selected for transmission.

NR supports dynamic indication of PUCCH resource and time. A HARQcodebook carried by PUCCH can contain HARQ feedback from multiplesubject transmissions, e.g. PDSCH (from multiple time instances and/orcomponent carriers) and/or one or more PDCCH. The PUCCH resource andtime may be indicated in the scheduling DL assignment in case of adynamic scheduled subject transmission representing data signaling. Theassociation between PDSCH and PUCCH can be based on the PUCCH resource(PR) and time indicated in the scheduling DCI (ΔT). It may be consideredthat feedback like HARQ feedback for subject transmissions like PDSCHs(data signaling) and/or control signaling, which is scheduled fortransmission on the same resource and/or time, may be reported togetherbased on the same codebook. The codebook may e.g. be selected based onthe resource and/or time and/or channel of transmission, and/or ofreception and/or type of subject transmission/s.

The latest PDSCH that can be included is limited by the processing timethe UE needs to prepare HARQ feedback. In the example in FIG. 3 , the UEcan report HARQ feedback on a short PUCCH in the same slot. The earliestPDSCH to include in the HARQ codebook for a given PUCCH resource is thefirst scheduled PDSCH after the time window of the last transmitted samePUCCH resource has been expired. In FIG. 3 , PDSCH of slot n−1 isreported on PUCCH resource m of slot n−1; PDSCH from slot n is thereforethe first PDSCH to include in the HARQ codebook transmitted on PUCCHresource m in slot n+4.

To avoid wrong HARQ codebook sizes and wrong indexing into the HARQcodebook, a DAI may be included in each DL assignment that counts DLassignments up to (including) the current DL assignment. A counter and atotal DAI may be provided, for example for a case of carrieraggregation. In FIG. 3 , the case without carrier aggregation is shown.

In NR, a carrier can support slot-based transmissions and non-slot-basedtransmissions (mini-slots). For slot-based transmissions, UE might beconfigured with CBG. For non-slot-based transmission a CBG configurationmight be less useful, especially if the transmissions are short (one orfew code blocks). Also, if a UE is scheduled with fallback DCI, it mayin some cases not use a CBG configuration. If a UE is scheduled with anon-slot-based transmission (e.g., to provide low latency), the gNB islikely to request early HARQ feedback to determine if a transmission hasbeen successful. This can be done by indicating a different PUCCHresource than that one used for other ongoing transmissions. In suchcases, a set of feedback configurations to select from may beadvantageous.

It is suggested configuring a UE with multiple (at least two) HARQcodebook configurations, respectively multiple codebooks. The multipleHARQ codebook configurations can be any combinations of dynamic andsemi-statically configured HARQ codebook, e.g. if a UE is configuredwith two HARQ codebooks, both could be dynamic, both could besemi-statically configured, or one could be dynamic and the other couldbe semi-statically configured, or any one could be partlysemi-statically and partly dynamically configured. Based on implicit orexplicit information available at the UE, the UE determines which HARQcodebook configuration to use (selects a codebook), and uses thedetermined HARQ codebook configuration for HARQ feedback transmission onPUCCH or as UCI on PUSCH.

Accordingly, unnecessarily large HARQ feedback transmissions may beavoided, which may reduce interference, and/or UE battery powerconsumption, and fewer radio resources may be utilised.

A UE may be configured with multiple HARQ codebook configurations. AHARQ codebook configuration (or short, codebook) may be defined by oneor several configuration parameters. Examples of such parameterscomprise dynamic/semi-statically configured, HARQ codebook size, numberof component carriers, time window length, number of HARQ processes inthe HARQ codebook, MIMO configuration (e.g., how many transport blocks aPDSCH can contain at most, of at least one component carrier or thehighest number across configured component carriers), CBG configuration(e.g., how many CBG a transport block can contain at most, of at leastone component carrier or the highest number across configured componentcarriers), fixed size of each entry in the HARQ codebook,presence/absence and size of DAI or slot counters, subpatternarrangement or size. Different codebooks may differ in at least one ofsuch parameters.

Which HARQ codebook configuration to use may be selected based onexplicit or implicit information available at the UE. Examples ofimplicit and explicit information are provided in the following.

Indication in DCI (control message) is discussed in the following. TheHARQ codebook configuration to use may be (explicitly) indicated in theDCI, e.g. one bit could be added to the DCI to select between twoconfigured HARQ configuration.

The presence or absence of certain fields in the DCI can be used toselect between HARQ codebook configurations. Also, DCI size or type(e.g. regular DCI vs. fallback DCI type) can be used to select betweentwo or multiple HARQ codebook configuration.

The information can also be implicitly derived from the resources, e.g.time-domain resource allocation. For certain time-domain resourceallocations, fulfilling a predefined criterium (e.g. scheduled durationbelow a configured/fixed threshold) may determine which HARQ codebookconfiguration to use (e.g., for a set of two HARQ codebooksconfigurations, but could be extended to multiple HARQ codebookconfigurations with multiple thresholds). This enables using a smallHARQ codebook for short transmissions, while a more complex one may beused for other transmissions.

A similar criterion can be based on the transport block size. If e.g.the transport block size is below a threshold (alternatively, the numberof code blocks or code block groups is below a threshold) a differentHARQ codebook configuration may be used than for a transport block sizereaching or over the threshold.

If the UE operates with a dynamic HARQ codebook configuration, thescheduling DCI may contain a DAI to avoid errors due to missed DLassignments. The DAI size may for example be 2 or 3 bit. One or a fewDAI combinations (codepoints) can be used to select the HARQ codebookconfiguration. It may be considered to reserve certain combinations forother bit fields to indicate another HARQ codebook; such bit fieldcombinations may be unused or unassigned for other functionality of thebit field.

Selection based on CORESET/search space/RNTI may be considered.

The determination which HARQ codebook configuration to use can also bebased on the CORESET and/or search space which has been used to schedulethe DL transmission. Typical MBB (Mobile BroadBand) transmissions areslot-based, while for low latency application, non-slot-basedtransmissions may be used. MBB transmissions are therefore typicallyscheduled from a CORESET at the beginning of a slot, while low latencytransmissions can be scheduled more flexible. CORESETS and/or searchspaces can be—via configuration—be associated with a HARQ codebookconfiguration of a set. Note that multiple CORESET/search spaces canpoint to the same HARQ codebook configuration.

A UE may be configured with multiple Radio Network Temporary Identifiers(RNTI). The CRC of a DCI is scrambled with the RNTI: The UE decodes aDCI, determines the CRC, and compares the determined CRC with thede-scrambled received CRC and if it matched the UE knows the DCI wasintended for it. DL assignments received with differently scrambled DCIcan be mapped to different HARQ codebook configurations. Note thatmultiple RNTI can point to the same HARQ codebook configuration. Anindication of the codebook to be selected may be represented by such useof RNTI.

Selection based on PUCCH resource may be considered. A PUCCH resource ora PUCCH format can be (via configuration) associated with a HARQcodebook configuration. From the DCI, and/or via other information, theUE may know on which PUCCH resource to transmit HARQ feedback for thecurrent DL transmission. Based on the PUCCH resource, the UE may selectwhich HARQ codebook configuration to use. Note that multiple PUCCHresources/formats can point to the same HARQ codebook configuration.

In NR, a UE can be configured with multiple bandwidth parts. A HARQcodebook configuration can be associated with a bandwidth part, anddepending on the bandwidth part of the transmission, a different HARQcodebook configuration may be used. Different bandwidth parts can beconfigured with different numerologies, i.e. also a numerology can beassociated with a HARQ codebook configuration and depending whichnumerology is used for PDCCH and/or PDSCH a certain HARQ codebookconfiguration is selected. Several bandwidth parts/numerologies canpoint to the same HARQ codebook configuration.

NR supports multiple PUCCH/Cell groups. A PUCCH group is a set of DLcomponent carriers together with an UL component carrier which is usedfor HARQ feedback of the DL carriers in the group. Different PUCCHgroups can be associated with different HARQ codebook configurations,especially dynamic vs. semi-statically configured HARQ codebook.

Scheduling one or different carriers within the same PUCCH/Cell groupcan be associated with different HARQ codebook configurations. Further,if the UE is scheduled on at least one Scell within a PUCCH group, acertain HARQ codebook configuration may be selected for all scheduledcarriers, while if the UE is only scheduled on for example the primarycell, or another specific cell, another HARQ codebook configurationapplies. The same aspect described here as carriers or cells can also bebased on search space, DCI message, CORESET, bandwidth part and so on.

In some cases, a UE may already have a HARQ feedback acknowledgementprocess ongoing on a first PUCCH resource, and may use a first HARQcodebook configuration. If the UE is instructed or configured—while thefirst HARQ feedback acknowledgement process is still ongoing—to provideHARQ feedback on a second PUCCH resource, it may select a second HARQcodebook configuration. With ongoing HARQ feedback acknowledgementprocess is may be referred to the UE having received at least one PDCCHindicating that for an associated PDSCH feedback signaling should beprovided on the first PUCCH resource, and the time window to use thefirst PUCCH resource has not yet been closed (determined by the UEprocessing time to determine HARQ feedback).

More generally, a PDCCH as well as the scheduled PDSCH have certainproperties, several examples of which have been discussed. DifferentHARQ codebook configurations can be associated with different values ofsuch a property or with value combinations for different parametercombinations.

The approaches are also applicable to sidelink or gNB-gNB communication.

FIG. 4 schematically shows a radio node, in particular a terminal orwireless device 10, which may in particular be implemented as a UE (UserEquipment). Radio node 10 comprises processing circuitry (which may alsobe referred to as control circuitry) 20, which may comprise a controllerconnected to a memory. Any module of the radio node 10, e.g. acommunicating module or determining module, may be implemented in and/orexecutable by, the processing circuitry 20, in particular as module inthe controller. Radio node 10 also comprises radio circuitry 22providing receiving and transmitting or transceiving functionality(e.g., one or more transmitters and/or receivers and/or transceivers),the radio circuitry 22 being connected or connectable to the processingcircuitry. An antenna circuitry 24 of the radio node 10 is connected orconnectable to the radio circuitry 22 to collect or send and/or amplifysignals. Radio circuitry 22 and the processing circuitry 20 controllingit are configured for cellular communication with a network, e.g. a RANas described herein, and/or for sidelink communication. Radio node 10may generally be adapted to carry out any of the methods of operating aradio node like terminal or UE disclosed herein; in particular, it maycomprise corresponding circuitry, e.g. processing circuitry, and/ormodules.

FIG. 5 schematically show a radio node 100, which may in particular beimplemented as a network node 100, for example an eNB or gNB or similarfor NR. Radio node 100 comprises processing circuitry (which may also bereferred to as control circuitry) 120, which may comprise a controllerconnected to a memory. Any module, e.g. transmitting module and/orreceiving module and/or configuring module of the node 100 may beimplemented in and/or executable by the processing circuitry 120. Theprocessing circuitry 120 is connected to control radio circuitry 122 ofthe node 100, which provides receiver and transmitter and/or transceiverfunctionality (e.g., comprising one or more transmitters and/orreceivers and/or transceivers). An antenna circuitry 124 may beconnected or connectable to radio circuitry 122 for signal reception ortransmittance and/or amplification. Node 100 may be adapted to carry outany of the methods for operating a radio node or network node disclosedherein; in particular, it may comprise corresponding circuitry, e.g.processing circuitry, and/or modules. The antenna circuitry 124 may beconnected to and/or comprise an antenna array. The node 100,respectively its circuitry, may be adapted to perform any of the methodsof operating a network node or a radio node as described herein; inparticular, it may comprise corresponding circuitry, e.g. processingcircuitry, and/or modules. The radio node 100 may generally comprisecommunication circuitry, e.g. for communication with another networknode, like a radio node, and/or with a core network and/or an internetor local net, in particular with an information system, which mayprovide information and/or data to be transmitted to a user equipment.

References to specific resource structures like transmission timingstructure and/or symbol and/or slot and/or mini-slot and/or subcarrierand/or carrier may pertain to a specific numerology, which may bepredefined and/or configured or configurable. A transmission timingstructure may represent a time interval, which may cover one or moresymbols. Some examples of a transmission timing structure aretransmission time interval (TTI), subframe, slot and mini-slot. A slotmay comprise a predetermined, e.g. predefined and/or configured orconfigurable, number of symbols, e.g. 6 or 7, or 12 or 14. A mini-slotmay comprise a number of symbols (which may in particular beconfigurable or configured) smaller than the number of symbols of aslot, in particular 1, 2, 3 or 4 symbols. A transmission timingstructure may cover a time interval of a specific length, which may bedependent on symbol time length and/or cyclic prefix used. Atransmission timing structure may pertain to, and/or cover, a specifictime interval in a time stream, e.g. synchronized for communication.Timing structures used and/or scheduled for transmission, e.g. slotand/or mini-slots, may be scheduled in relation to, and/or synchronizedto, a timing structure provided and/or defined by other transmissiontiming structures. Such transmission timing structures may define atiming grid, e.g., with symbol time intervals within individualstructures representing the smallest timing units. Such a timing gridmay for example be defined by slots or subframes (wherein in some cases,subframes may be considered specific variants of slots). A transmissiontiming structure may have a duration (length in time) determined basedon the durations of its symbols, possibly in addition to cyclicprefix/es used. The symbols of a transmission timing structure may havethe same duration, or may in some variants have different duration. Thenumber of symbols in a transmission timing structure may be predefinedand/or configured or configurable, and/or be dependent on numerology.The timing of a mini-slot may generally be configured or configurable,in particular by the network and/or a network node. The timing may beconfigurable to start and/or end at any symbol of the transmissiontiming structure, in particular one or more slots.

There is generally considered a program product comprising instructionsadapted for causing processing and/or control circuitry to carry outand/or control any method described herein, in particular when executedon the processing and/or control circuitry. Also, there is considered acarrier medium arrangement carrying and/or storing a program product asdescribed herein.

A carrier medium arrangement may comprise one or more carrier media.Generally, a carrier medium may be accessible and/or readable and/orreceivable by processing or control circuitry. Storing data and/or aprogram product and/or code may be seen as part of carrying data and/ora program product and/or code. A carrier medium generally may comprise aguiding/transporting medium and/or a storage medium. Aguiding/transporting medium may be adapted to carry and/or carry and/orstore signals, in particular electromagnetic signals and/or electricalsignals and/or magnetic signals and/or optical signals. A carriermedium, in particular a guiding/transporting medium, may be adapted toguide such signals to carry them. A carrier medium, in particular aguiding/transporting medium, may comprise the electromagnetic field,e.g. radio waves or microwaves, and/or optically transmissive material,e.g. glass fiber, and/or cable. A storage medium may comprise at leastone of a memory, which may be volatile or non-volatile, a buffer, acache, an optical disc, magnetic memory, flash memory, etc.

A system comprising one or more radio nodes as described herein, inparticular a network node and a user equipment, is described. The systemmay be a wireless communication system, and/or provide and/or representa radio access network.

Moreover, there may be generally considered a method of operating aninformation system, the method comprising providing information.Alternatively, or additionally, an information system adapted forproviding information may be considered. Providing information maycomprise providing information for, and/or to, a target system, whichmay comprise and/or be implemented as radio access network and/or aradio node, in particular a network node or user equipment or terminal.Providing information may comprise transferring and/or streaming and/orsending and/or passing on the information, and/or offering theinformation for such and/or for download, and/or triggering suchproviding, e.g. by triggering a different system or node to streamand/or transfer and/or send and/or pass on the information. Theinformation system may comprise, and/or be connected or connectable to,a target, for example via one or more intermediate systems, e.g. a corenetwork and/or internet and/or private or local network. Information maybe provided utilising and/or via such intermediate system/s. Providinginformation may be for radio transmission and/or for transmission via anair interface and/or utilising a RAN or radio node as described herein.Connecting the information system to a target, and/or providinginformation, may be based on a target indication, and/or adaptive to atarget indication. A target indication may indicate the target, and/orone or more parameters of transmission pertaining to the target and/orthe paths or connections over which the information is provided to thetarget. Such parameter/s may in particular pertain to the air interfaceand/or radio access network and/or radio node and/or network node.Example parameters may indicate for example type and/or nature of thetarget, and/or transmission capacity (e.g., data rate) and/or latencyand/or reliability and/or cost, and/or indicate quality of serviceand/or latency and/or data throughput and/or prioritisation, inparticular they may indicate a capability to provide such, respectivelyone or more estimates thereof. The target indication may be provided bythe target, or determined by the information system, e.g. based oninformation received from the target and/or historical information,and/or be provided by a user, for example a user operating the target ora device in communication with the target, e.g. via the RAN and/or airinterface. For example, a user may indicate on a user equipmentcommunicating with the information system that information is to beprovided via a RAN, e.g. by selecting from a selection provided by theinformation system, for example on a user application or user interface,which may be a web interface. An information system may comprise one ormore information nodes. An information node may generally compriseprocessing circuitry and/or communication circuitry. In particular, aninformation system and/or an information node may be implemented as acomputer and/or a computer arrangement, e.g. a host computer or hostcomputer arrangement and/or server or server arrangement. In somevariants, an interaction server (e.g., web server) of the informationsystem may provide a user interface, and based on user input may triggertransmitting and/or streaming information provision to the user (and/orthe target) from another server, which may be connected or connectableto the interaction server and/or be part of the information system or beconnected or connectable thereto. The information may be any kind ofdata, in particular data intended for a user of for use at a terminal,e.g. video data and/or audio data and/or location data and/orinteractive data and/or game-related data and/or environmental dataand/or technical data and/or traffic data and/or vehicular data and/orcircumstantial data and/or operational data. The information provided bythe information system may be mapped to, and/or mappable to, and/or beintended for mapping to, communication or data signaling and/or one ormore data channels as described herein (which may be signaling orchannel/s of an air interface and/or used within a RAN and/or for radiotransmission). It may be considered that the information is formattedbased on the target indication and/or target, e.g. regarding data amountand/or data rate and/or data structure and/or timing, which inparticular may be pertaining to a mapping to communication or datasignaling and/or one or more data channel/s. Mapping information to datasignaling and/or data channel/s may be considered to refer to using thesignaling/channel/s to carry the data, e.g. on higher layers ofcommunication, with the signaling/channel/s underlying the transmission.A target indication generally may comprise different components, whichmay have different sources, and/or which may indicate differentcharacteristics of the target and/or communication path/s thereto. Aformat of information may be specifically selected, e.g. from a set ofdifferent formats, for information to be transmitted on an air interfaceand/or by a RAN as described herein. This may be particularly pertinentsince an air interface may be limited in terms of capacity and/or ofpredictability, and/or potentially be cost sensitive. The format may beselected to be adapted to the transmission indication, which may inparticular indicate that a RAN or radio node as described herein is inthe path (which may be the indicated and/or planned and/or expectedpath) of information between the target and the information system. A(communication) path of information may represent the interface/s (e.g.,air and/or cable interfaces) and/or the intermediate system/s (if any),between the information system and/or the node providing or transferringthe information, and the target, over which the information is, or is tobe, passed on. A path may be (at least partly) undetermined when atarget indication is provided, and/or the information isprovided/transferred by the information system, e.g. if an internet isinvolved, which may comprise multiple, dynamically chosen paths.Information and/or a format used for information may be packet-based,and/or be mapped, and/or be mappable and/or be intended for mapping, topackets. Alternatively, or additionally, there may be considered amethod for operating a target device comprising providing a targetindicating to an information system. More alternatively, oradditionally, a target device may be considered, the target device beingadapted for providing a target indication to an information system. Inanother approach, there may be considered a target indication tooladapted for, and/or comprising an indication module for, providing atarget indication to an information system. The target device maygenerally be a target as described above. A target indication tool maycomprise, and/or be implemented as, software and/or application or app,and/or web interface or user interface, and/or may comprise one or moremodules for implementing actions performed and/or controlled by thetool. The tool and/or target device may be adapted for, and/or themethod may comprise, receiving a user input, based on which a targetindicating may be determined and/or provided. Alternatively, oradditionally, the tool and/or target device may be adapted for, and/orthe method may comprise, receiving information and/or communicationsignaling carrying information, and/or operating on, and/or presenting(e.g., on a screen and/or as audio or as other form of indication),information. The information may be based on received information and/orcommunication signaling carrying information. Presenting information maycomprise processing received information, e.g. decoding and/ortransforming, in particular between different formats, and/or forhardware used for presenting. Operating on information may beindependent of or without presenting, and/or proceed or succeedpresenting, and/or may be without user interaction or even userreception, for example for automatic processes, or target deviceswithout (e.g., regular) user interaction like MTC devices, of forautomotive or transport or industrial use. The information orcommunication signaling may be expected and/or received based on thetarget indication. Presenting and/or operating on information maygenerally comprise one or more processing steps, in particular decodingand/or executing and/or interpreting and/or transforming information.Operating on information may generally comprise relaying and/ortransmitting the information, e.g. on an air interface, which mayinclude mapping the information onto signaling (such mapping maygenerally pertain to one or more layers, e.g. one or more layers of anair interface, e.g. RLC (Radio Link Control) layer and/or MAC layerand/or physical layer/s). The information may be imprinted (or mapped)on communication signaling based on the target indication, which maymake it particularly suitable for use in a RAN (e.g., for a targetdevice like a network node or in particular a UE or terminal). The toolmay generally be adapted for use on a target device, like a UE orterminal. Generally, the tool may provide multiple functionalities, e.g.for providing and/or selecting the target indication, and/or presenting,e.g. video and/or audio, and/or operating on and/or storing receivedinformation. Providing a target indication may comprise transmitting ortransferring the indication as signaling, and/or carried on signaling,in a RAN, for example if the target device is a UE, or the tool for aUE. It should be noted that such provided information may be transferredto the information system via one or more additionally communicationinterfaces and/or paths and/or connections. The target indication may bea higher-layer indication and/or the information provided by theinformation system may be higher-layer information, e.g. applicationlayer or user-layer, in particular above radio layers like transportlayer and physical layer. The target indication may be mapped onphysical layer radio signaling, e.g. related to or on the user-plane,and/or the information may be mapped on physical layer radiocommunication signaling, e.g. related to or on the user-plane (inparticular, in reverse communication directions). The describedapproaches allow a target indication to be provided, facilitatinginformation to be provided in a specific format particularly suitableand/or adapted to efficiently use an air interface. A user input may forexample represent a selection from a plurality of possible transmissionmodes or formats, and/or paths, e.g. in terms of data rate and/orpackaging and/or size of information to be provided by the informationsystem.

In general, a numerology and/or subcarrier spacing may indicate thebandwidth (in frequency domain) of a subcarrier of a carrier, and/or thenumber of subcarriers in a carrier and/or the numbering of thesubcarriers in a carrier. Different numerologies may in particular bedifferent in the bandwidth of a subcarrier. In some variants, all thesubcarriers in a carrier have the same bandwidth associated to them. Thenumerology and/or subcarrier spacing may be different between carriersin particular regarding the subcarrier bandwidth. A symbol time length,and/or a time length of a timing structure pertaining to a carrier maybe dependent on the carrier frequency, and/or the subcarrier spacingand/or the numerology. In particular, different numerologies may havedifferent symbol time lengths.

Signaling may generally comprise one or more sy and/or signals and/ormessages. A signal may comprise or represent one or more bits. Anindication may represent signaling, and/or be implemented as a signal,or as a plurality of signals. One or more signals may be included inand/or represented by a message. Signaling, in particular controlsignaling, may comprise a plurality of signals and/or messages, whichmay be transmitted on different carriers and/or be associated todifferent signaling processes, e.g. representing and/or pertaining toone or more such processes and/or corresponding information. Anindication may comprise signaling, and/or a plurality of signals and/ormessages and/or may be comprised therein, which may be transmitted ondifferent carriers and/or be associated to different acknowledgementsignaling processes, e.g. representing and/or pertaining to one or moresuch processes. Signaling associated to a channel may be transmittedsuch that represents signaling and/or information for that channel,and/or that the signaling is interpreted by the transmitter and/orreceiver to belong to that channel. Such signaling may generally complywith transmission parameters and/or format/s for the channel.

Reference signaling may be signaling comprising one or more referencesymbols and/or structures. Reference signaling may be adapted forgauging and/or estimating and/or representing transmission conditions,e.g. channel conditions and/or transmission path conditions and/orchannel (or signal or transmission) quality. It may be considered thatthe transmission characteristics (e.g., signal strength and/or formand/or modulation and/or timing) of reference signaling are availablefor both transmitter and receiver of the signaling (e.g., due to beingpredefined and/or configured or configurable and/or being communicated).Different types of reference signaling may be considered, e.g.pertaining to uplink, downlink or sidelink, cell-specific (inparticular, cell-wide, e.g., CRS) or device or user specific (addressedto a specific target or user equipment, e.g., CSI-RS),demodulation-related (e.g., DMRS) and/or signal strength related, e.g.power-related or energy-related or amplitude-related (e.g., SRS or pilotsignaling) and/or phase-related, etc.

Uplink or sidelink signaling may be OFDMA (Orthogonal Frequency DivisionMultiple Access) or SC-FDMA (Single Carrier Frequency Division MultipleAccess) signaling. Downlink signaling may in particular be OFDMAsignaling. However, signaling is not limited thereto (Filter-Bank basedsignaling may be considered one alternative).

A radio node may generally be considered a device or node adapted forwireless and/or radio (and/or microwave) frequency communication, and/orfor communication utilising an air interface, e.g. according to acommunication standard.

A radio node may be a network node, or a user equipment or terminal. Anetwork node may be any radio node of a wireless communication network,e.g. a base station and/or gNodeB (gNB) and/or eNodeB (eNB) and/or relaynode and/or micro/nano/pico/femto node and/or transmission point (TP)and/or access point (AP) and/or other node, in particular for a RAN asdescribed herein.

The terms wireless device, user equipment (UE) and terminal may beconsidered to be interchangeable in the context of this disclosure. Awireless device, user equipment or terminal may represent an end devicefor communication utilising the wireless communication network, and/orbe implemented as a user equipment according to a standard. Examples ofuser equipments may comprise a phone like a smartphone, a personalcommunication device, a mobile phone or terminal, a computer, inparticular laptop, a sensor or machine with radio capability (and/oradapted for the air interface), in particular for MTC(Machine-Type-Communication, sometimes also referred to M2M,Machine-To-Machine), or a vehicle adapted for wireless communication. Auser equipment or terminal may be mobile or stationary.

A radio node may generally comprise processing circuitry and/or radiocircuitry. A radio node, in particular a network node, may in some casescomprise cable circuitry and/or communication circuitry, with which itmay be connected or connectable to another radio node and/or a corenetwork.

Circuitry may comprise integrated circuitry. Processing circuitry maycomprise one or more processors and/or controllers (e.g.,microcontrollers), and/or ASICs (Application Specific IntegratedCircuitry) and/or FPGAs (Field Programmable Gate Array), or similar. Itmay be considered that processing circuitry comprises, and/or is(operatively) connected or connectable to one or more memories or memoryarrangements. A memory arrangement may comprise one or more memories. Amemory may be adapted to store digital information. Examples formemories comprise volatile and non-volatile memory, and/or Random AccessMemory (RAM), and/or Read-Only-Memory (ROM), and/or magnetic and/oroptical memory, and/or flash memory, and/or hard disk memory, and/orEPROM or EEPROM (Erasable Programmable ROM or Electrically ErasableProgrammable ROM).

Radio circuitry may comprise one or more transmitters and/or receiversand/or transceivers (a transceiver may operate or be operable astransmitter and receiver, and/or may comprise joint or separatedcircuitry for receiving and transmitting, e.g. in one package orhousing), and/or may comprise one or more amplifiers and/or oscillatorsand/or filters, and/or may comprise, and/or be connected or connectableto antenna circuitry and/or one or more antennas and/or antenna arrays.An antenna array may comprise one or more antennas, which may bearranged in a dimensional array, e.g. 2D or 3D array, and/or antennapanels. A remote radio head (RRH) may be considered as an example of anantenna array. However, in some variants, a RRH may be also beimplemented as a network node, depending on the kind of circuitry and/orfunctionality implemented therein.

Communication circuitry may comprise radio circuitry and/or cablecircuitry. Communication circuitry generally may comprise one or moreinterfaces, which may be air interface/s and/or cable interface/s and/oroptical interface/s, e.g. laser-based. Interface/s may be in particularpacket-based. Cable circuitry and/or a cable interfaces may comprise,and/or be connected or connectable to, one or more cables (e.g., opticalfiber-based and/or wire-based), which may be directly or indirectly(e.g., via one or more intermediate systems and/or interfaces) beconnected or connectable to a target, e.g. controlled by communicationcircuitry and/or processing circuitry.

Any one or all of the modules disclosed herein may be implemented insoftware and/or firmware and/or hardware. Different modules may beassociated to different components of a radio node, e.g. differentcircuitries or different parts of a circuitry. It may be considered thata module is distributed over different components and/or circuitries. Aprogram product as described herein may comprise the modules related toa device on which the program product is intended (e.g., a userequipment or network node) to be executed (the execution may beperformed on, and/or controlled by the associated circuitry).

A radio access network may be a wireless communication network, and/or aRadio Access Network (RAN) in particular according to a communicationstandard. A communication standard may in particular a standardaccording to 3GPP and/or 5G, e.g. according to NR or LTE, in particularLTE Evolution.

Contention-based and/or grant-free transmission and/or access may bebased on resource/s that are not specifically scheduled or reserved forthe transmission or a specific device (or group of devices in somecases), and/or comprise transmission that is not unambiguouslyassociatable, by the receiver, with a transmitter, e.g. based on theresources used for transmission.

A wireless communication network may be and/or comprise a Radio AccessNetwork (RAN), which may be and/or comprise any kind of cellular and/orwireless radio network, which may be connected or connectable to a corenetwork. The approaches described herein are particularly suitable for a5G network, e.g. LTE Evolution and/or NR (New Radio), respectivelysuccessors thereof. A RAN may comprise one or more network nodes, and/orone or more terminals, and/or one or more radio nodes. A network nodemay in particular be a radio node adapted for radio and/or wirelessand/or cellular communication with one or more terminals. A terminal maybe any device adapted for radio and/or wireless and/or cellularcommunication with or within a RAN, e.g. a user equipment (UE) or mobilephone or smartphone or computing device or vehicular communicationdevice or device for machine-type-communication (MTC), etc. A terminalmay be mobile, or in some cases stationary. A RAN or a wirelesscommunication network may comprise at least one network node and a UE,or at least two radio nodes. There may be generally considered awireless communication network or system, e.g. a RAN or RAN system,comprising at least one radio node, and/or at least one network node andat least one terminal.

Transmitting in downlink may pertain to transmission from the network ornetwork node to the terminal. Transmitting in uplink may pertain totransmission from the terminal to the network or network node.Transmitting in sidelink may pertain to (direct) transmission from oneterminal to another. Uplink, downlink and sidelink (e.g., sidelinktransmission and reception) may be considered communication directions.In some variants, uplink and downlink may also be used to describedwireless communication between network nodes, e.g. for wireless backhauland/or relay communication and/or (wireless) network communication forexample between base stations or similar network nodes, in particularcommunication terminating at such. It may be considered that backhauland/or relay communication and/or network communication is implementedas a form of sidelink or uplink communication or similar thereto.

Control information or a control information message or correspondingsignaling (control signaling) may be transmitted on a control channel,e.g. a physical control channel, which may be a downlink channel or (ora sidelink channel in some cases, e.g. one UE scheduling another UE).For example, control information/allocation information may be signaledby a network node on PDCCH (Physical Downlink Control Channel) and/or aPDSCH (Physical Downlink Shared Channel) and/or a HARQ-specific channel.Acknowledgement signaling, e.g. as a form of control information orsignaling like uplink control information/signaling, may be transmittedby a terminal on a PUCCH (Physical Uplink Control Channel) and/or PUSCH(Physical Uplink Shared Channel) and/or a HARQ-specific channel.Multiple channels may apply for multi-component/multi-carrier indicationor signaling.

Signaling may generally be considered to represent an electromagneticwave structure (e.g., over a time interval and frequency interval),which is intended to convey information to at least one specific orgeneric (e.g., anyone who might pick up the signaling) target. A processof signaling may comprise transmitting the signaling. Transmittingsignaling, in particular control signaling or communication signaling,e.g. comprising or representing acknowledgement signaling and/orresource requesting information, may comprise encoding and/ormodulating. Encoding and/or modulating may comprise error detectioncoding and/or forward error correction encoding and/or scrambling.Receiving control signaling may comprise corresponding decoding and/ordemodulation. Error detection coding may comprise, and/or be based on,parity or checksum approaches, e.g. CRC (Cyclic Redundancy Check).Forward error correction coding may comprise and/or be based on forexample turbo coding and/or Reed-Muller coding, and/or polar codingand/or LDPC coding (Low Density Parity Check). The type of coding usedmay be based on the channel (e.g., physical channel) the coded signal isassociated to. A code rate may represent the ratio of the number ofinformation bits before encoding to the number of encoded bits afterencoding, considering that encoding adds coding bits for error detectioncoding and forward error correction. Coded bits may refer to informationbits (also called systematic bits) plus coding bits.

Communication signaling may comprise, and/or represent, and/or beimplemented as, data signaling, and/or user plane signaling.Communication signaling may be associated to a data channel, e.g. aphysical downlink channel or physical uplink channel or physicalsidelink channel, in particular a PDSCH (Physical Downlink SharedChannel) or PSSCH (Physical Sidelink Shared Channel). Generally, a datachannel may be a shared channel or a dedicated channel. Data signalingmay be signaling associated to and/or on a data channel.

An indication generally may explicitly and/or implicitly indicate theinformation it represents and/or indicates. Implicit indication may forexample be based on position and/or resource used for transmission.Explicit indication may for example be based on a parametrisation withone or more parameters, and/or one or more index or indices, and/or oneor more bit patterns representing the information. It may in particularbe considered that control signaling as described herein, based on theutilised resource sequence, implicitly indicates the control signalingtype.

A resource element may generally describe the smallest individuallyusable and/or encodable and/or decodable and/or modulatable and/ordemodulatable time-frequency resource, and/or may describe atime-frequency resource covering a symbol time length in time and asubcarrier in frequency. A signal may be allocatable and/or allocated toa resource element. A subcarrier may be a subband of a carrier, e.g. asdefined by a standard. A carrier may define a frequency and/or frequencyband for transmission and/or reception. In some variants, a signal(jointly encoded/modulated) may cover more than one resource elements. Aresource element may generally be as defined by a correspondingstandard, e.g. NR or LTE. As symbol time length and/or subcarrierspacing (and/or numerology) may be different between different symbolsand/or subcarriers, different resource elements may have differentextension (length/width) in time and/or frequency domain, in particularresource elements pertaining to different carriers.

A resource generally may represent a time-frequency and/or coderesource, on which signaling, e.g. according to a specific format, maybe communicated, for example transmitted and/or received, and/or beintended for transmission and/or reception.

A resource pool generally may indicate and/or comprise resources, inparticular time-frequency resources, e.g. time and frequency intervals,which may be contiguous or interrupted, and/or code resources. Aresource pool may in particular indicate and/or comprise resourceelements and/or resource blocks, e.g. PRBs. A radio node like a userequipment may be considered to be configured with a resource pool if itreceived corresponding control signaling configuring it therewith. Suchcontrol signaling may in particular be transmitted by a receiving radionode as described herein. The control signaling may in particular behigher layer signaling, e.g. MAC and/or RRC signaling, and/or may besemi-static or semi-persistent. In some cases, the responding radio nodeor user equipment may be considered configured with a resource pool, ifit is informed about a corresponding configuration, e.g. that it mayaccess resources in the pool for transmitting. Such a configuration insome cases may be predefined, e.g. based on a standard and/or defaultconfiguration. A resource pool may be dedicated to one responding radionode or user equipment, or in some cases shared between several. It maybe considered that a resource pool may be general, or for specific typesof signaling, e.g. control signaling or data signaling. A transmissionresource pool may in particular be for control signaling, e.g. uplinkcontrol signaling and/or sidelink control signaling, and/or may bededicated to the user equipment/responding radio node. It may beconsidered that a resource pool comprises a plurality of resourcestructures, which may be arranged in subpools or groups, e.g. pertainingand/or according to type of (received or scheduled) signaling or type ofresponse control signaling. Each group or subpool may comprise a numberof resource structures, wherein the number may be representable by anindicator and/or bit field of the selection control information. Forexample, the maximum number of resource structures in a group maycorrespond to the maximum number of different values representable bythe bit field or indicator. Different groups may have different numbersof resource structures. It may generally be considered that a groupcomprises a smaller number of resource structures than representable bythe indicator or bit field. A resource pool may represent a search spaceand/or space of availability of resources and/or resource structuresavailable for specific signaling. In particular, a transmission resourcepool may be considered to represent a (time/frequency and/or code)domain or space of resources available for response control signaling.

A signaling characteristic may represent resources and/or resourcestructures in a reception resource pool, which may be different from thetransmission resource pool. Resources and/or resource structuresrepresenting signaling characteristics of characterising signaling, inparticular downlink (or sidelink) control signaling, and/or acorresponding pool, may in particular comprise one or more CORESETs(COntrol REsource SETs), each of which may represent a group or subpool.A CORESET may be associated to a specific time interval, in particularin a transmission timing structure like a slot, e.g. one or moresymbols. It may be considered that a first CORESET is configured for the1, 2, or 3 first symbols in a slot. A second CORESET may be configuredfor one or more later symbols, e.g. the 5th and/or 6th symbol of thesame slot. In this case, the second CORESET may in particular correspondto mini-slot related signaling, e.g. comprise resource structuresassociated to short (e.g., 1 or 2 symbols) response control signaling,and/or a short latency requirement (e.g., 1 or 2 symbols), and/orreceived or scheduled transmission in a mini-slot and/or in response toa mini-slot, e.g. mini-slot data signaling. The first CORESET may beassociated to slot-based signaling, e.g. long data signaling (e.g.,longer than 2, 3 or 4 symbols), and/or response control signaling withrelaxed latency requirement (e.g., more than 1 or 2 symbols, and/orallowing transmission in a later transmission timing structure like alater slot or subframe), and/or long response control signaling, e.g.longer than 2 or 3 or 4 symbols. Generally, different CORESETs may beseparated in time domain by at least 1 symbol, in particular by 1, 2, 3or 4 symbols. Depending in which of the groups or subpools, inparticular CORESETs, characterising signaling is received, it may beassociated to a specific subpool or group of the transmission resourcepool. A reception resource pool may be predefined and/or configured tothe responding radio node, e.g. by the receiving radio node, which mayalternatively or additionally configure the transmission resource pool.Pool configuration may generally be predefined, or performed by thenetwork or a network node (e.g., a receiving radio node), or anotherresponding radio node taking the corresponding functionality and/or alsooperating as a receiving radio node, e.g. in sidelink communication (inwhich the configuration may be performed by another UE, or thenetwork/network node).

A border symbol may generally represent a starting symbol or an endingsymbol for transmitting and/or receiving. A starting symbol may inparticular be a starting symbol of uplink or sidelink signaling, forexample control signaling or data signaling. Such signaling may be on adata channel or control channel, e.g. a physical channel, in particulara physical uplink shared channel (like PUSCH) or a sidelink data orshared channel, or a physical uplink control channel (like PUCCH) or asidelink control channel. If the starting symbol is associated tocontrol signaling (e.g., on a control channel), the control signalingmay be in response to received signaling (in sidelink or downlink), e.g.representing acknowledgement signaling associated thereto, which may beHARQ or ARQ signaling. An ending symbol may represent an ending symbol(in time) of downlink or sidelink transmission or signaling, which maybe intended or scheduled for the radio node or user equipment. Suchdownlink signaling may in particular be data signaling, e.g. on aphysical downlink channel like a shared channel, e.g. a PDSCH (PhysicalDownlink Shared Channel). A starting symbol may be determined based on,and/or in relation to, such an ending symbol.

Configuring a radio node, in particular a terminal or user equipment,may refer to the radio node being adapted or caused or set and/orinstructed to operate according to the configuration. Configuring may bedone by another device, e.g., a network node (for example, a radio nodeof the network like a base station or eNodeB) or network, in which caseit may comprise transmitting configuration data to the radio node to beconfigured. Such configuration data may represent the configuration tobe configured and/or comprise one or more instruction pertaining to aconfiguration, e.g. a configuration for transmitting and/or receiving onallocated resources, in particular frequency resources. A radio node mayconfigure itself, e.g., based on configuration data received from anetwork or network node. A network node may utilise, and/or be adaptedto utilise, its circuitry/ies for configuring. Allocation informationmay be considered a form of configuration data. Configuration data maycomprise and/or be represented by configuration information, and/or oneor more corresponding indications and/or message/s

Generally, configuring may include determining configuration datarepresenting the configuration and providing, e.g. transmitting, it toone or more other nodes (parallel and/or sequentially), which maytransmit it further to the radio node (or another node, which may berepeated until it reaches the wireless device). Alternatively, oradditionally, configuring a radio node, e.g., by a network node or otherdevice, may include receiving configuration data and/or data pertainingto configuration data, e.g., from another node like a network node,which may be a higher-level node of the network, and/or transmittingreceived configuration data to the radio node.

Accordingly, determining a configuration and transmitting theconfiguration data to the radio node may be performed by differentnetwork nodes or entities, which may be able to communicate via asuitable interface, e.g., an X2 interface in the case of LTE or acorresponding interface for NR. Configuring a terminal may comprisescheduling downlink and/or uplink transmissions for the terminal, e.g.downlink data and/or downlink control signaling and/or DCI and/or uplinkcontrol or data or communication signaling, in particularacknowledgement signaling, and/or configuring resources and/or aresource pool therefor.

A resource structure may be considered to be neighbored in frequencydomain by another resource structure, if they share a common borderfrequency, e.g. one as an upper frequency border and the other as alower frequency border. Such a border may for example be represented bythe upper end of a bandwidth assigned to a subcarrier n, which alsorepresents the lower end of a bandwidth assigned to a subcarrier n+1. Aresource structure may be considered to be neighbored in time domain byanother resource structure, if they share a common border time, e.g. oneas an upper (or right in the figures) border and the other as a lower(or left in the figures) border. Such a border may for example berepresented by the end of the symbol time interval assigned to a symboln, which also represents the beginning of a symbol time intervalassigned to a symbol n+1.

Generally, a resource structure being neighbored by another resourcestructure in a domain may also be referred to as abutting and/orbordering the other resource structure in the domain.

A resource structure may general represent a structure in time and/orfrequency domain, in particular representing a time interval and afrequency interval. A resource structure may comprise and/or becomprised of resource elements, and/or the time interval of a resourcestructure may comprise and/or be comprised of symbol time interval/s,and/or the frequency interval of a resource structure may compriseand/or be comprised of subcarrier/s. A resource element may beconsidered an example for a resource structure, a slot or mini-slot or aPhysical Resource Block (PRB) or parts thereof may be considered others.A resource structure may be associated to a specific channel, e.g. aPUSCH or PUCCH, in particular resource structure smaller than a slot orPRB.

Examples of a resource structure in frequency domain comprise abandwidth or band, or a bandwidth part. A bandwidth part may be a partof a bandwidth available for a radio node for communicating, e.g. due tocircuitry and/or configuration and/or regulations and/or a standard. Abandwidth part may be configured or configurable to a radio node. Insome variants, a bandwidth part may be the part of a bandwidth used forcommunicating, e.g. transmitting and/or receiving, by a radio node. Thebandwidth part may be smaller than the bandwidth (which may be a devicebandwidth defined by the circuitry/configuration of a device, and/or asystem bandwidth, e.g. available for a RAN). It may be considered that abandwidth part comprises one or more resource blocks or resource blockgroups, in particular one or more PRBs or PRB groups. A bandwidth partmay pertain to, and/or comprise, one or more carriers. A resource poolor region or set may generally comprise one or a plurality (inparticular, two or a multiple of two larger than two) of resources orresource structures. A resource or resource structure may comprise oneor more resource elements (in particular, two or a multiple of twolarger than two), or one or more PRBs or PRB groups (in particular, twoor a multiple of two larger than two), which may be continuous infrequency.

A carrier may generally represent a frequency range or band and/orpertain to a central frequency and an associated frequency interval. Itmay be considered that a carrier comprises a plurality of subcarriers. Acarrier may have assigned to it a central frequency or center frequencyinterval, e.g. represented by one or more subcarriers (to eachsubcarrier there may be generally assigned a frequency bandwidth orinterval). Different carriers may be non-overlapping, and/or may beneighboring in frequency domain.

It should be noted that the term “radio” in this disclosure may beconsidered to pertain to wireless communication in general, and may alsoinclude wireless communication utilising microwave and/or millimeterand/or other frequencies, in particular between 100 MHz or 1 GHz, and100 GHz or 20 or 10 GHz. Such communication may utilise one or morecarriers.

A radio node, in particular a network node or a terminal, may generallybe any device adapted for transmitting and/or receiving radio and/orwireless signals and/or data, in particular communication data, inparticular on at least one carrier. The at least one carrier maycomprise a carrier accessed based on a LBT procedure (which may becalled LBT carrier), e.g., an unlicensed carrier. It may be consideredthat the carrier is part of a carrier aggregate.

Receiving or transmitting on a cell or carrier may refer to receiving ortransmitting utilizing a frequency (band) or spectrum associated to thecell or carrier. A cell may generally comprise and/or be defined by orfor one or more carriers, in particular at least one carrier for ULcommunication/transmission (called UL carrier) and at least one carrierfor DL communication/transmission (called DL carrier). It may beconsidered that a cell comprises different numbers of UL carriers and DLcarriers. Alternatively, or additionally, a cell may comprise at leastone carrier for UL communication/transmission and DLcommunication/transmission, e.g., in TDD-based approaches.

A channel may generally be a logical, transport or physical channel. Achannel may comprise and/or be arranged on one or more carriers, inparticular a plurality of subcarriers. A channel carrying and/or forcarrying control signaling/control information may be considered acontrol channel, in particular if it is a physical layer channel and/orif it carries control plane information. Analogously, a channel carryingand/or for carrying data signaling/user information may be considered adata channel, in particular if it is a physical layer channel and/or ifit carries user plane information. A channel may be defined for aspecific communication direction, or for two complementary communicationdirections (e.g., UL and DL, or sidelink in two directions), in whichcase it may be considered to have two component channels, one for eachdirection. Examples of channels comprise a channel for low latencyand/or high reliability transmission, in particular a channel forUltra-Reliable Low Latency Communication (URLLC), which may be forcontrol and/or data.

In general, a symbol may represent and/or be associated to a symbol timelength, which may be dependent on the carrier and/or subcarrier spacingand/or numerology of the associated carrier. Accordingly, a symbol maybe considered to indicate a time interval having a symbol time length inrelation to frequency domain. A symbol time length may be dependent on acarrier frequency and/or bandwidth and/or numerology and/or subcarrierspacing of, or associated to, a symbol. Accordingly, different symbolsmay have different symbol time lengths. In particular, numerologies withdifferent subcarrier spacings may have different symbol time length.Generally, a symbol time length may be based on, and/or include, a guardtime interval or cyclic extension, e.g. prefix or postfix.

A sidelink may generally represent a communication channel (or channelstructure) between two UEs and/or terminals, in which data istransmitted between the participants (UEs and/or terminals) via thecommunication channel, e.g. directly and/or without being relayed via anetwork node. A sidelink may be established only and/or directly via airinterface/s of the participant, which may be directly linked via thesidelink communication channel. In some variants, sidelink communicationmay be performed without interaction by a network node, e.g. on fixedlydefined resources and/or on resources negotiated between theparticipants. Alternatively, or additionally, it may be considered thata network node provides some control functionality, e.g. by configuringresources, in particular one or more resource pool/s, for sidelinkcommunication, and/or monitoring a sidelink, e.g. for charging purposes.

Sidelink communication may also be referred to as device-to-device (D2D)communication, and/or in some cases as ProSe (Proximity Services)communication, e.g. in the context of LTE. A sidelink may be implementedin the context of V2x communication (Vehicular communication), e.g. V2V(Vehicle-to-Vehicle), V2I (Vehicle-to-Infrastructure) and/or V2P(Vehicle-to-Person). Any device adapted for sidelink communication maybe considered a user equipment or terminal.

A sidelink communication channel (or structure) may comprise one or more(e.g., physical or logical) channels, e.g. a PSCCH (Physical SidelinkControl CHannel, which may for example carry control information like anacknowledgement position indication, and/or a PSSCH (Physical SidelinkShared CHannel, which for example may carry data and/or acknowledgementsignaling). It may be considered that a sidelink communication channel(or structure) pertains to and/or used one or more carrier/s and/orfrequency range/s associated to, and/or being used by, cellularcommunication, e.g. according to a specific license and/or standard.Participants may share a (physical) channel and/or resources, inparticular in frequency domain and/or related to a frequency resourcelike a carrier) of a sidelink, such that two or more participantstransmit thereon, e.g. simultaneously, and/or time-shifted, and/or theremay be associated specific channels and/or resources to specificparticipants, so that for example only one participant transmits on aspecific channel or on a specific resource or specific resources, e.g.,in frequency domain and/or related to one or more carriers orsubcarriers.

A sidelink may comply with, and/or be implemented according to, aspecific standard, e.g. a LTE-based standard and/or NR. A sidelink mayutilise TDD (Time Division Duplex) and/or FDD (Frequency DivisionDuplex) technology, e.g. as configured by a network node, and/orpreconfigured and/or negotiated between the participants. A userequipment may be considered to be adapted for sidelink communication ifit, and/or its radio circuitry and/or processing circuitry, is adaptedfor utilising a sidelink, e.g. on one or more frequency ranges and/orcarriers and/or in one or more formats, in particular according to aspecific standard. It may be generally considered that a Radio AccessNetwork is defined by two participants of a sidelink communication.Alternatively, or additionally, a Radio Access Network may berepresented, and/or defined with, and/or be related to a network nodeand/or communication with such a node.

Communication or communicating may generally comprise transmittingand/or receiving signaling. Communication on a sidelink (or sidelinksignaling) may comprise utilising the sidelink for communication(respectively, for signaling). Sidelink transmission and/or transmittingon a sidelink may be considered to comprise transmission utilising thesidelink, e.g. associated resources and/or transmission formats and/orcircuitry and/or the air interface. Sidelink reception and/or receivingon a sidelink may be considered to comprise reception utilising thesidelink, e.g. associated resources and/or transmission formats and/orcircuitry and/or the air interface. Sidelink control information (e.g.,SCI) may generally be considered to comprise control informationtransmitted utilising a sidelink.

Generally, carrier aggregation (CA) may refer to the concept of a radioconnection and/or communication link between a wireless and/or cellularcommunication network and/or network node and a terminal or on asidelink comprising a plurality of carriers for at least one directionof transmission (e.g. DL and/or UL), as well as to the aggregate ofcarriers. A corresponding communication link may be referred to ascarrier aggregated communication link or CA communication link; carriersin a carrier aggregate may be referred to as component carriers (CC). Insuch a link, data may be transmitted over more than one of the carriersand/or all the carriers of the carrier aggregation (the aggregate ofcarriers). A carrier aggregation may comprise one (or more) dedicatedcontrol carriers and/or primary carriers (which may e.g. be referred toas primary component carrier or PCC), over which control information maybe transmitted, wherein the control information may refer to the primarycarrier and other carriers, which may be referred to as secondarycarriers (or secondary component carrier, SCC). However, in someapproaches, control information may be send over more than one carrierof an aggregate, e.g. one or more PCCs and one PCC and one or more SCCs.

A transmission may generally pertain to a specific channel and/orspecific resources, in particular with a starting symbol and endingsymbol in time, covering the interval therebetween. A scheduledtransmission may be a transmission scheduled and/or expected and/or forwhich resources are scheduled or provided or reserved. However, notevery scheduled transmission has to be realized. For example, ascheduled downlink transmission may not be received, or a scheduleduplink transmission may not be transmitted due to power limitations, orother influences (e.g., a channel on an unlicensed carrier beingoccupied). A transmission may be scheduled for a transmission timingsubstructure (e.g., a mini-slot, and/or covering only a part of atransmission timing structure) within a transmission timing structurelike a slot. A border symbol may be indicative of a symbol in thetransmission timing structure at which the transmission starts or ends.

Predefined in the context of this disclosure may refer to the relatedinformation being defined for example in a standard, and/or beingavailable without specific configuration from a network or network node,e.g. stored in memory, for example independent of being configured.Configured or configurable may be considered to pertain to thecorresponding information being set/configured, e.g. by the network or anetwork node.

A configuration or schedule, like a mini-slot configuration and/orstructure configuration, may schedule transmissions, e.g. for thetime/transmissions it is valid, and/or transmissions may be scheduled byseparate signaling or separate configuration, e.g. separate RRCsignaling and/or downlink control information signaling. Thetransmission/s scheduled may represent signaling to be transmitted bythe device for which it is scheduled, or signaling to be received by thedevice for which it is scheduled, depending on which side of acommunication the device is. It should be noted that downlink controlinformation or specifically DCI signaling may be considered physicallayer signaling, in contrast to higher layer signaling like MAC (MediumAccess Control) signaling or RRC layer signaling. The higher the layerof signaling is, the less frequent/the more time/resource consuming itmay be considered, at least partially due to the information containedin such signaling having to be passed on through several layers, eachlayer requiring processing and handling.

A scheduled transmission, and/or transmission timing structure like amini-slot or slot, may pertain to a specific channel, in particular aphysical uplink shared channel, a physical uplink control channel, or aphysical downlink shared channel, e.g. PUSCH, PUCCH or PDSCH, and/or maypertain to a specific cell and/or carrier aggregation. A correspondingconfiguration, e.g. scheduling configuration or symbol configuration maypertain to such channel, cell and/or carrier aggregation. It may beconsidered that the scheduled transmission represents transmission on aphysical channel, in particular a shared physical channel, for example aphysical uplink shared channel or physical downlink shared channel. Forsuch channels, semi-persistent configuring may be particularly suitable.

Generally, a configuration may be a configuration indicating timing,and/or be represented or configured with corresponding configurationdata. A configuration may be embedded in, and/or comprised in, a messageor configuration or corresponding data, which may indicate and/orschedule resources, in particular semi-persistently and/orsemi-statically. In general, a configuration, in particular the feedbackconfiguration and/or a codebook configuration or a set thereof, may beconfigured based on one or more messages. Such messages may beassociated to different layers, and/or there may be at least one messagefor dynamical configuration and/or at least one message for semi-staticconfiguration. Different messages may configure different or similar orthe same parameter/s and/or setting/s; in some cases, dynamicconfiguration, e.g. with DCI/SCI signaling, may override semi-staticconfiguration, and/or may indicate a selection from a set ofconfigurations, which may e.g. be predefined and/or configured withhigher layer/semi-static configuration. In particular, a configurationlike a feedback configuration may be configured with one or more RadioResource Control (RRC) messages and/or one or more Medium Access Control(MAC) messages and/or one or more Control Information messages, e.g.Downlink Control Information (DCI) messages and/or Sidelink ControlInformation (SCI) messages.

A control region of a transmission timing structure may be an intervalin time for intended or scheduled or reserved for control signaling, inparticular downlink control signaling, and/or for a specific controlchannel, e.g. a physical downlink control channel like PDCCH. Theinterval may comprise, and/or consist of, a number of symbols in time,which may be configured or configurable, e.g. by (UE-specific) dedicatedsignaling (which may be single-cast, for example addressed to orintended for a specific UE), e.g. on a PDCCH, or RRC signaling, or on amulticast or broadcast channel. In general, the transmission timingstructure may comprise a control region covering a configurable numberof symbols. It may be considered that in general the border symbol isconfigured to be after the control region in time.

The duration of a symbol (symbol time length or interval) of thetransmission timing structure may generally be dependent on a numerologyand/or carrier, wherein the numerology and/or carrier may beconfigurable. The numerology may be the numerology to be used for thescheduled transmission.

Scheduling a device, or for a device, and/or related transmission orsignaling, may be considered comprising, or being a form of, configuringthe device with resources, and/or of indicating to the device resources,e.g. to use for communicating. Scheduling may in particular pertain to atransmission timing structure, or a substructure thereof (e.g., a slotor a mini-slot, which may be considered a substructure of a slot). Itmay be considered that a border symbol may be identified and/ordetermined in relation to the transmission timing structure even if fora substructure being scheduled, e.g. if an underlying timing grid isdefined based on the transmission timing structure. Signaling indicatingscheduling may comprise corresponding scheduling information and/or beconsidered to represent or contain configuration data indicating thescheduled transmission and/or comprising scheduling information. Suchconfiguration data or signaling may be considered a resourceconfiguration or scheduling configuration. It should be noted that sucha configuration (in particular as single message) in some cases may notbe complete without other configuration data, e.g. configured with othersignaling, e.g. higher layer signaling. In particular, the symbolconfiguration may be provided in addition to scheduling/resourceconfiguration to identify exactly which symbols are assigned to ascheduled transmission. A scheduling (or resource) configuration mayindicate transmission timing structure/s and/or resource amount (e.g.,in number of symbols or length in time) for a scheduled transmission.

A scheduled transmission may be transmission scheduled, e.g. by thenetwork or network node. Transmission may in this context may be uplink(UL) or downlink (DL) or sidelink (SL) transmission. A device, e.g. auser equipment, for which the scheduled transmission is scheduled, mayaccordingly be scheduled to receive (e.g., in DL or SL), or to transmit(e.g. in UL or SL) the scheduled transmission. Scheduling transmissionmay in particular be considered to comprise configuring a scheduleddevice with resource/s for this transmission, and/or informing thedevice that the transmission is intended and/or scheduled for someresources. A transmission may be scheduled to cover a time interval, inparticular a successive number of symbols, which may form a continuousinterval in time between (and including) a starting symbol and an endingsymbols. The starting symbol and the ending symbol of a (e.g.,scheduled) transmission may be within the same transmission timingstructure, e.g. the same slot. However, in some cases, the ending symbolmay be in a later transmission timing structure than the startingsymbol, in particular a structure following in time. To a scheduledtransmission, a duration may be associated and/or indicated, e.g. in anumber of symbols or associated time intervals. In some variants, theremay be different transmissions scheduled in the same transmission timingstructure. A scheduled transmission may be considered to be associatedto a specific channel, e.g. a shared channel like PUSCH or PDSCH.

In the context of this disclosure, there may be distinguished betweendynamically scheduled or aperiodic transmission and/or configuration,and semi-static or semi-persistent or periodic transmission and/orconfiguration. The term “dynamic” or similar terms may generally pertainto configuration/transmission valid and/or scheduled and/or configuredfor (relatively) short timescales and/or a (e.g., predefined and/orconfigured and/or limited and/or definite) number of occurrences and/ortransmission timing structures, e.g. one or more transmission timingstructures like slots or slot aggregations, and/or for one or more(e.g., specific number) of transmission/occurrences. Dynamicconfiguration may be based on low-level signaling, e.g. controlsignaling on the physical layer and/or MAC layer, in particular in theform of DCI or SCI. Periodic/semi-static may pertain to longertimescales, e.g. several slots and/or more than one frame, and/or anon-defined number of occurrences, e.g., until a dynamic configurationcontradicts, or until a new periodic configuration arrives. A periodicor semi-static configuration may be based on, and/or be configured with,higher-layer signaling, in particular RCL layer signaling and/or RRCsignaling and/or MAC signaling.

A transmission timing structure may comprise a plurality of symbols,and/or define an interval comprising several symbols (respectively theirassociated time intervals). In the context of this disclosure, it shouldbe noted that a reference to a symbol for ease of reference may beinterpreted to refer to the time domain projection or time interval ortime component or duration or length in time of the symbol, unless it isclear from the context that the frequency domain component also has tobe considered. Examples of transmission timing structures include slot,subframe, mini-slot (which also may be considered a substructure of aslot), slot aggregation (which may comprise a plurality of slots and maybe considered a superstructure of a slot), respectively their timedomain component. A transmission timing structure may generally comprisea plurality of symbols defining the time domain extension (e.g.,interval or length or duration) of the transmission timing structure,and arranged neighboring to each other in a numbered sequence. A timingstructure (which may also be considered or implemented assynchronisation structure) may be defined by a succession of suchtransmission timing structures, which may for example define a timinggrid with symbols representing the smallest grid structures. Atransmission timing structure, and/or a border symbol or a scheduledtransmission may be determined or scheduled in relation to such a timinggrid. A transmission timing structure of reception may be thetransmission timing structure in which the scheduling control signalingis received, e.g. in relation to the timing grid. A transmission timingstructure may in particular be a slot or subframe or in some cases, amini-slot.

Feedback signaling may be considered a form or control signaling, e.g.uplink or sidelink control signaling, like UCI (Uplink ControlInformation) signaling or SCI (Sidelink Control Information) signaling.Feedback signaling may in particular comprise and/or representacknowledgement signaling and/or acknowledgement information and/ormeasurement reporting.

Transmitting feedback signaling may be based on, and/or comprise,determining feedback information, e.g. one or more bits representing thefeedback information. Determining feedback information may compriseperforming demodulation and/or error decoding and/or error detectionand/or error correction, and/or determining one or more bits ofacknowledgement information, e.g. pertaining to the subjecttransmission, and/or represented by an associated subpattern.Alternatively, or additionally, it may comprise performing measurement/son the subject transmission, e.g. for demodulation, and/or for providingmeasurement information and/or for measurement reporting. In some cases,it may comprise determining a scheduling request, and/or providingscheduling-related information, e.g. regarding a buffer status.Transmitting feedback signaling may generally comprise, and/or be basedon, determining feedback information, e.g. one or more feedback orACK/NACK bits. Such determining may comprise performing error decoding,e.g. based on error coding bits, e.g. CRC and/or FEC bits associated tothe subject transmission, e.g. data or control information, which may beincluded in the subject transmission. Error decoding may comprisecorrecting information, for example based on FEC bits. The error codingbits may be determined based on the information content bits, e.g.utilising an error coding scheme like CRC, and/or polar coding or LDPCcoding or Reed Muller coding. The information content may be representedby bits. The information, and in some cases error coding bits associatedthereto like error detection bits and/or error correction bits, like CRCand/or FEC bits, may be considered to represent one or more datastructures or substructures, for each of which one or more feedbackbits, e.g. to indicate ACK or NACK, may be included in theacknowledgement feedback. Thus, at least one bit may be provided for adata structure and/or the whole of the information and/or a messagecarrying it, and/or one bit may be provided for one or moresubstructures thereof, to which corresponding error coding may beassociated and/or provided, e.g. in the message or signaling. A messagemay be considered to be similar to a transport block and/or a code blockgroup. One or more acknowledgement process identifiers like a HARQ orARQ identifier may be associated to the subject transmission. A bitsubpattern representing reception (e.g., ACK/NACK or DTX/DRX) may begenerally associated to the information in the acknowledgement feedback(acknowledgment feedback may refer to feedback information representingacknowledgement information).

Control information may generally be transmitted in a control message,e.g. on a physical layer or channel, e.g. as a dynamic message like aDCI message or SCI message. A control message may be a command typemessage, which may comprise, and/or consist of, command typeinformation; or a scheduling type message, which may comprise schedulinginformation, e.g. scheduling data signaling. Control information maycomprise scheduling type control information (or, shorter, schedulingtype information), e.g. control information indicating resources and/ortransmission parameters for reception of signaling, and/or controlinformation indicating resources and/or transmission parameters fortransmission of signaling. The signaling may in particular be datasignaling, e.g. on a data channel. Control information may in particularcomprise, or consist of, command type control information, and/or beincluded into a command type message. In general, control information orcontrol message, e.g. DCI or SCI messages, may be distinguished betweenscheduling type information/messages and command typeinformation/messages. A scheduling type message may scheduletransmission on a data channel (data signaling), e.g. for reception ortransmission for the target radio node, e.g. in downlink or uplink,respectively. Scheduling grant and scheduling assignment are examples ofsuch scheduling type messages. A command type message may be a messageof a different type, e.g., not scheduling transmission on a datachannel. A command type message may comprise a set of instructions,which may be configurable or flexible. The instructions may bescheduling-independent. Command type information may for exampleindicate and/or instruct switching of bandwidth, e.g. to anotherbandwidth part, and/or activation or deactivation of a carrier and/orcell and/or bandwidth part, and/or activation or deactivation ofgrant-free transmissions, and/or indications of selection a parameter orconfiguration out of a set of configured parameters or configurations.In some variants, a command type message may be scheduling independentsuch that it does not schedule data signaling, or it may have astructure in which such scheduling may be configurable or optional. Forthe command type, there may be no scheduled transmission based on whichreception of the control information may be inferred. It should be notedthat scheduling type messages may comprise command type information.Feedback information may be considered a form of control information, inparticular UCI or SCI, depending on communication direction or mode.Feedback signaling may be considered a form of control signaling. Acontrol message comprising feedback information may be considered to beof a further type, which may be referred to as feedback type message,which may include a request for resources or in general UCI or UCI-likeinformation in sidelink or backhaul or relay link.

Acknowledgement information may comprise an indication of a specificvalue or state for an acknowledgement signaling process, e.g. ACK orNACK or DTX. Such an indication may for example represent a bit or bitvalue or bit pattern or an information switch. Different levels ofacknowledgement information, e.g. providing differentiated informationabout quality of reception and/or error position in received dataelement/s may be considered and/or represented by control signaling.Acknowledgment information may generally indicate acknowledgment ornon-acknowledgment or non-reception or different levels thereof, e.g.representing ACK or NACK or DTX. Acknowledgment information may pertainto one acknowledgement signaling process. Acknowledgement signaling maycomprise acknowledgement information pertaining to one or moreacknowledgement signaling processes, in particular one or more HARQ orARQ processes. It may be considered that to each acknowledgmentsignaling process the acknowledgement information pertains to, aspecific number of bits of the information size of the control signalingis assigned. Measurement reporting signaling may comprise measurementinformation.

Signaling may generally comprise one or more symbols and/or signalsand/or messages. A signal may comprise and/or represent one or morebits, which may be modulated into a common modulated signal. Anindication may represent signaling, and/or be implemented as a signal,or as a plurality of signals. One or more signals may be included inand/or represented by a message. Signaling, in particular controlsignaling, may comprise a plurality of signals and/or messages, whichmay be transmitted on different carriers and/or be associated todifferent acknowledgement signaling processes, e.g. representing and/orpertaining to one or more such processes. An indication may comprisesignaling and/or a plurality of signals and/or messages and/or may becomprised therein, which may be transmitted on different carriers and/orbe associated to different acknowledgement signaling processes, e.g.representing and/or pertaining to one or more such processes.

Signaling utilising, and/or on and/or associated to, resources or aresource structure may be signaling covering the resources or structure,signaling on the associated frequency/ies and/or in the associated timeinterval/s. It may be considered that a signaling resource structurecomprises and/or encompasses one or more substructures, which may beassociated to one or more different channels and/or types of signalingand/or comprise one or more holes (resource element/s not scheduled fortransmissions or reception of transmissions). A resource substructure,e.g. a feedback resource structure, may generally be continuous in timeand/or frequency, within the associated intervals. It may be consideredthat a substructure, in particular a feedback resource structure,represents a rectangle filled with one or more resource elements intime/frequency space. However, in some cases, a resource structure orsubstructure, in particular a frequency resource range, may represent anon-continuous pattern of resources in one or more domains, e.g. timeand/or frequency. The resource elements of a substructure may bescheduled for associated signaling.

It should generally be noted that the number of bits or a bit rateassociated to specific signaling that can be carried on a resourceelement may be based on a modulation and coding scheme (MCS). Thus, bitsor a bit rate may be seen as a form of resources representing a resourcestructure or range in frequency and/or time, e.g. depending on MCS. TheMCS may be configured or configurable, e.g. by control signaling, e.g.DCI or MAC (Medium Access Control) or RRC (Radio Resource Control)signaling.

Different formats of for control information may be considered, e.g.different formats for a control channel like a Physical Uplink ControlChannel (PUCCH). PUCCH may carry control information or correspondingcontrol signaling, e.g. Uplink Control Information (UCI). UCI maycomprise feedback signaling, and/or acknowledgement signaling like HARQfeedback (ACK/NACK), and/or measurement information signaling, e.g.comprising Channel Quality Information (CQI), and/or Scheduling Request(SR) signaling. One of the supported PUCCH formats may be short, and maye.g. occur at the end of a slot interval, and/or multiplexed and/orneighboring to PUSCH. Similar control information may be provided on asidelink, e.g. as Sidelink Control Information (SCI), in particular on a(physical) sidelink control channel, like a (P)SCCH.

A code block may be considered a subelement or substructure of a dataelement or data block like a transport block, e.g., a transport blockmay comprise a one or a plurality of code blocks.

A scheduling assignment may be configured with control signaling, e.g.downlink control signaling or sidelink control signaling. Such controlssignaling may be considered to represent and/or comprise schedulingsignaling, which may indicate scheduling information. A schedulingassignment may be considered scheduling information indicatingscheduling of signaling/transmission of signaling, in particularpertaining to signaling received or to be received by the deviceconfigured with the scheduling assignment. It may be considered that ascheduling assignment may indicate data (e.g., data block or elementand/or channel and/or data stream) and/or an (associated)acknowledgement signaling process and/or resource/s on which the data(or, in some cases, reference signaling) is to be received and/orindicate resource/s for associated feedback signaling, and/or a feedbackresource range on which associated feedback signaling is to betransmitted. Transmission associated to an acknowledgement signalingprocess, and/or the associated resources or resource structure, may beconfigured and/or scheduled, for example by a scheduling assignment.Different scheduling assignments may be associated to differentacknowledgement signaling processes. A scheduling assignment may beconsidered an example of downlink control information or signaling, e.g.if transmitted by a network node and/or provided on downlink (orsidelink control information if transmitted using a sidelink and/or by auser equipment).

A scheduling grant (e.g., uplink grant) may represent control signaling(e.g., downlink control information/signaling). It may be consideredthat a scheduling grant configures the signaling resource range and/orresources for uplink (or sidelink) signaling, in particular uplinkcontrol signaling and/or feedback signaling, e.g. acknowledgementsignaling. Configuring the signaling resource range and/or resources maycomprise configuring or scheduling it for transmission by the configuredradio node. A scheduling grant may indicate a channel and/or possiblechannels to be used/usable for the feedback signaling, in particularwhether a shared channel like a PUSCH may be used/is to be used. Ascheduling grant may generally indicate uplink resource/s and/or anuplink channel and/or a format for control information pertaining toassociated scheduling assignments. Both grant and assignment/s may beconsidered (downlink or sidelink) control information, and/or beassociated to, and/or transmitted with, different messages.

A resource structure in frequency domain (which may be referred to asfrequency interval and/or range) may be represented by a subcarriergrouping. A subcarrier grouping may comprise one or more subcarriers,each of which may represent a specific frequency interval, and/orbandwidth. The bandwidth of a subcarrier, the length of the interval infrequency domain, may be determined by the subcarrier spacing and/ornumerology. The subcarriers may be arranged such that each subcarrierneighbours at least one other subcarrier of the grouping in frequencyspace (for grouping sizes larger than 1). The subcarriers of a groupingmay be associated to the same carrier, e.g. configurably or configuredof predefined. A physical resource block may be consideredrepresentative of a grouping (in frequency domain). A subcarriergrouping may be considered to be associated to a specific channel and/ortype of signaling, it transmission for such channel or signaling isscheduled and/or transmitted and/or intended and/or configured for atleast one, or a plurality, or all subcarriers in the grouping. Suchassociation may be time-dependent, e.g. configured or configurable orpredefined, and/or dynamic or semi-static. The association may bedifferent for different devices, e.g. configured or configurable orpredefined, and/or dynamic or semi-static. Patterns of subcarriergroupings may be considered, which may comprise one or more subcarriergroupings (which may be associated to same or differentsignalings/channels), and/or one or more groupings without associatedsignaling (e.g., as seen from a specific device). An example of apattern is a comb, for which between pairs of groupings associated tothe same signaling/channel there are arranged one or more groupingsassociated to one or more different channels and/or signaling types,and/or one or more groupings without associated channel/signaling).

Rate-matching may comprise including the rate-matched information into abit-stream before encoding and/or modulating, e.g. replacing bits ofdata. Puncturing may comprise replacing modulated symbols with modulatedsymbols representing the punctured information.

Example types of signaling comprise signaling of a specificcommunication direction, in particular, uplink signaling, downlinksignaling, sidelink signaling, as well as reference signaling (e.g., SRSor CRS or CSI-RS), communication signaling, control signaling, and/orsignaling associated to a specific channel like PUSCH, PDSCH, PUCCH,PDCCH, PSCCH, PSSCH, etc.).

Operational conditions may pertain to load of the RAN, or application oruse case of transmission or signaling, and/or quality of service (QoS)conditions (or requirements) for a transmission or signaling. QoS mayfor example pertain to data rate and/or priority and/or latency and/ortransmission quality, e.g. BLER or BER. Use for URLLC may be considereda quality of service-related condition.

In this disclosure, for purposes of explanation and not limitation,specific details are set forth (such as particular network functions,processes and signaling steps) in order to provide a thoroughunderstanding of the technique presented herein. It will be apparent toone skilled in the art that the present concepts and aspects may bepracticed in other variants and variants that depart from these specificdetails.

For example, the concepts and variants are partially described in thecontext of Long Term Evolution (LTE) or LTE-Advanced (LTE-A) or NewRadio mobile or wireless communications technologies; however, this doesnot rule out the use of the present concepts and aspects in connectionwith additional or alternative mobile communication technologies such asthe Global System for Mobile Communications (GSM). While describedvariants may pertain to certain Technical Specifications (TSs) of theThird Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), it will be appreciated thatthe present approaches, concepts and aspects could also be realized inconnection with different Performance Management (PM) specifications.

Moreover, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the services,functions and steps explained herein may be implemented using softwarefunctioning in conjunction with a programmed microprocessor, or using anApplication Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Digital SignalProcessor (DSP), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) or generalpurpose computer. It will also be appreciated that while the variantsdescribed herein are elucidated in the context of methods and devices,the concepts and aspects presented herein may also be embodied in aprogram product as well as in a system comprising control circuitry,e.g. a computer processor and a memory coupled to the processor, whereinthe memory is encoded with one or more programs or program products thatexecute the services, functions and steps disclosed herein.

It is believed that the advantages of the aspects and variants presentedherein will be fully understood from the foregoing description, and itwill be apparent that various changes may be made in the form,constructions and arrangement of the exemplary aspects thereof withoutdeparting from the scope of the concepts and aspects described herein orwithout sacrificing all of its advantageous effects. The aspectspresented herein can be varied in many ways.

Some useful abbreviations comprise

ABBREVIATION EXPLANATION

ACK/NACK Acknowledgment/Negative Acknowledgement

ARQ Automatic Repeat reQuest

CAZAC Constant Amplitude Zero Cross Correlation

CBG Code Block Group

CDM Code Division Multiplex

CM Cubic Metric

CORESET Control channel Resource Set

CQI Channel Quality Information

CRC Cyclic Redundancy Check

CRS Common reference signal

CSI Channel State Information

CSI-RS Channel state information reference signal

DAI Downlink Assignment Indicator

DCI Downlink Control Information

DFT Discrete Fourier Transform

DM(-)RS Demodulation reference signal(ing)

FDD/FDM Frequency Division Duplex/Multiplex

HARQ Hybrid Automatic Repeat Request

IFFT Inverse Fast Fourier Transform

MBB Mobile Broadband

MCS Modulation and Coding Scheme

MIMO Multiple-input-multiple-output

MRC Maximum-ratio combining

MRT Maximum-ratio transmission

MU-MIMO Multiuser multiple-input-multiple-output

OFDM/A Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex/Multiple Access

PAPR Peak to Average Power Ratio

PDCCH Physical Downlink Control Channel

PDSCH Physical Downlink Shared Channel

PRACH Physical Random Access CHannel

PRB Physical Resource Block

PUCCH Physical Uplink Control Channel

PUSCH Physical Uplink Shared Channel

(P)SCCH (Physical) Sidelink Control Channel

(P)SSCH (Physical) Sidelink Shared Channel

QoS Quality of Service

RB Resource Block

RNTI Radio Network Temporary Identifier

RRC Radio Resource Control

SC-FDM/A Single Carrier Frequency Division Multiplex/Multiple Access

SCI Sidelink Control Information

SINR Signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio

SIR Signal-to-interference ratio

SNR Signal-to-noise-ratio

SR Scheduling Request

SRS Sounding Reference Signal(ing)

SVD Singular-value decomposition

TDD/TDM Time Division Duplex/Multiplex

UCI Uplink Control Information

UE User Equipment

URLLC Ultra Low Latency High Reliability Communication

VL-MIMO Very-large multiple-input-multiple-output

ZF Zero Forcing

Abbreviations may be considered to follow 3GPP usage if applicable.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method of operating a feedback radio nodein a radio access network, the feedback radio node being configured witha set of feedback codebooks, each codebook of the set indicating anarrangement of one or more subpatterns of feedback bits into feedbackinformation, the method comprising: transmitting feedback signalingrepresenting feedback information determined based on a codebookselected from the set of feedback codebooks, the feedback informationcorresponding to a plurality of subject transmissions and beingscheduled for transmission on a same resource.
 2. The method accordingto claim 1, wherein at least one feedback codebook is a HARQ codebook.3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the codebook is selectedbased on an indication received with control information.
 4. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein the codebook is selected based onresources scheduled for transmission of the feedback signaling.
 5. Themethod according to claim 1, wherein the codebook is selected based on aformat indicated for the feedback signaling.
 6. The method according toclaim 1, wherein the feedback signaling is based on a transmissioncodebook determined based on the selected codebook—by changing theselected codebook based on a received feedback control indication. 7.The method according to claim 1, wherein a subpattern of bits of thefeedback information pertains to one of control signaling and datasignaling.
 8. The method according to claim 1, wherein at least onefeedback codebook of the set comprises one or more subpatternspertaining to control signaling.
 9. The method according to claim 1,wherein different feedback codebooks pertain to at least one of:different carriers; different carrier arrangements; different types ofsignaling; and different types of control signaling.
 10. The methodaccording to claim 1, wherein at least one feedback codebook of the setcomprises at least one subpattern pertaining to a code block group. 11.A feedback radio node for a radio access network, the feedback radionode comprising processing circuitry being configured: to be configuredwith a set of feedback codebooks, each codebook of the set indicating anarrangement of one or more subpatterns of feedback bits into feedbackinformation; and to cause the feedback radio node to transmit feedbacksignaling representing feedback information determined based on acodebook selected from the set of feedback codebooks, the feedbackinformation corresponding to a plurality of subject transmissions andbeing scheduled for transmission on a same resource.
 12. A method ofoperating a signaling radio node in a radio access network, the methodcomprising: configuring a feedback radio node with a set of feedbackcodebooks, each codebook of the set indicating an arrangement of one ormore subpatterns of feedback bits into feedback information; andreceiving feedback signaling representing feedback informationdetermined based on a codebook selected from the set of feedbackcodebooks, the feedback information corresponding to a plurality ofsubject transmissions and being scheduled for transmission on a sameresource.
 13. The method according to claim 12, wherein at least onefeedback codebook is a HARQ codebook.
 14. The method according to claim12, wherein the codebook is selected based on an indication receivedwith control information.
 15. The method according to claim 12, whereinthe codebook is selected based on resources scheduled for transmissionof the feedback signaling.
 16. The method according to claim 12, whereinthe codebook is selected based on a format indicated for the feedbacksignaling.
 17. The method according to claim 12, wherein the feedbacksignaling is based on a transmission codebook determined based on theselected codebook by changing the selected codebook based on a receivedfeedback control indication.
 18. The method according to claim 12,wherein a subpattern of bits of the feedback information pertains to oneof control signaling and data signaling.
 19. A signalling radio node fora radio access network, the signaling radio node comprising processingcircuitry being configured to: configure a feedback radio node with aset of feedback codebooks, each codebook of the set indicating anarrangement of one or more subpatterns of feedback bits into feedbackinformation; and cause the signalling radio node to receive feedbacksignaling representing feedback information determined based on acodebook selected from the set of feedback codebooks, the feedbackinformation corresponding to a plurality of subject transmissions andbeing scheduled for transmission on a same resource.
 20. Anon-transitory computer storage medium storing a computer programcomprising instructions that, when executed, cause processing circuitryto at least one of control and perform a method of operating a feedbackradio node in a radio access network, the feedback radio node beingconfigured with a set of feedback codebooks, each codebook of the setindicating an arrangement of one or more subpatterns of feedback bitsinto feedback information, the method comprising: transmitting feedbacksignaling representing feedback information determined based on acodebook selected from the set of feedback codebooks, the feedbackinformation corresponding to a plurality of subject transmissions andbeing scheduled for transmission on a same resource.